Multitechnique diagnostic analysis and 3D surveying prior to the restoration of St. Michael defeating Evil painting by Mattia Preti

In this study, a multimethodological analysis involving optical and physical/chemical diagnostic techniques and 3D photogrammetric survey was successfully applied, for the first time, on the large oil on canvas St. Michael defeating Evil painting by Mattia Preti, located inside the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Sarria (Floriana) in Malta. Pigmenting agents, binder media, and raw materials were first characterized, both at elemental and molecular scales, through X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), optical stereo microscopy (SM), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and gas chroma…