Compositional analysis of XVIII century glazed, polychrome, layered porcelain by non-destructive micro α-PIXE

A XVIII century polychrome porcelain, of complex layered structure has been analysed by using several techniques. The studied porcelain shard was a fragment of a flooring tile from the “Casita del Labrador”, a small palace located in Aranjuez, near Madrid. The high spatial resolution of the α-PIXE technique, an appropriate choice of the beam energies and the use of an external micro-beam have allowed to determine the composition of the constituent layers almost free from interferences, which was not possible with other analytical techniques. The nature of the pigments in particular is now well understood. PIXE analysis was confirmed by traditional, although destructive, XRD, XRF and SEM-EDS analyses.