Balla's bouquet: A pigment study for flowers and lights

Abstract Girl with flowers (Bambina coi fiori) is a painting by Giacomo Balla, one of the key proponents of Futurism, an Italian artistic and social movement of the beginning of the 20th century. Property of Musei Civici of Varese (Italy) since 1965, it was restored for an exhibition held in 2020. On this occasion, an extensive campaign to detect painting materials was carried out preliminarily to the restoration. Imaging and spectroscopic techniques were applied with the specific aim to individuate pigments, binders and preparation layers, in order to better understand the chemical phenomena linked to the current degradation and bad conservation state. Quite interestingly, classical materials were detected, with the only exception of cobalt violet and green, testifying a first introduction of modern industrial materials, one of the focuses in the Futurist program.