New Insights into the Medieval Hispano-Muslim Panel Painting: The Alfarje Found in a Balearic Casal (Spain) Álvarez Romero, Carla García Bueno, Ana López Martínez, Teresa Turatti Guerrero, Rafael Hispano-Muslim Art Panel painting Indigo Panel painting alteration Calcium oxalate FIB-FESEM-EDX AFM-NI FESEM-EDX FTIR spectroscopy Hispano-Muslim culture flourished during the Middle Ages in the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands. During the restoration of a Balearic nobiliary building (casal), several panels with polychrome decoration on the back side were found. They were part of an old Muslim wooden ceiling (alfarje). A multi-technique strategy including optical microscopy, infrared and Raman spectroscopies, field emission scanning electron microscopy-X-ray microanalysis (FESEM-EDX), focused ion beam (FIB-FESEM-EDX), atomic force microscopy nanoindentation (AFM-NI), and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) has been applied in the analysis of these panel paintings and has provided morphological and compositional data that have led to the identification of the materials and artistic technique as well as the alteration mechanisms due to the natural aging and the adverse conditions of conservation. As a novelty, this study has confirmed the use of indigo as a blue pigment, an unusual material in Hispano-Muslim panel painting. Apart from the notable change in the visual appearance observed in the paintings, the study has also confirmed a change in the mechanical resistance in the paint layers. These changes have been induced by the combination of the chemical and microbiological alteration mechanisms identified. 2023-03-22T10:08:08Z 2023-03-22T10:08:08Z 2023-01-27 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Álvarez-Romero, C... [et al.]. New Insights into the Medieval Hispano-Muslim Panel Painting: The Alfarje Found in a Balearic Casal (Spain). Molecules 2023, 28, 1235. [https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28031235] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/80742 10.3390/molecules28031235 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 4.0 Internacional MDPI