GC-MS characterisation and identification of natural terpenic resins employed in works of art

Natural resins were frequently employed in the past as adhesives or as components of oleo-resinous media in paintings. The identification of vegetable resins is still an open problem. The aim of this paper is to analyse by GC-MS some vegetable resins frequently employed in paintings, such as Venice turpentine, dammar, copal, elemi, in order to identify their main components in samples both raw and aged. Some molecules are proposed as chemical markers to identify these natural resins. Two samples scraped off from XV and XVII century paintings were used to test the reliability of proposed method.