Conventional pigment analysis of paintings requires the removal of micro-sa
mples followed by the preparation of cross-sections, There are also require
ments for investigating several locations within a painting in order to obt
ain information about dating and provenance or the reason for aesthetic imp
ressions of the paint materials. The need to carry out such work without re
moving samples prompted the present project, in which the authors aimed to
examine the possibility of applying XRF and PIXE methods in a complementary
manner. The ion beam techniques of external PIXE plus Rutherford backscatt
ering could distinguish painting techniques, i.e. paint layer arrangements
and pigment admixtures, whereas portable XRF represents a valuable tool for
preselecting the objects of interest which could be transported to the ion
beam laboratory. This procedure was tested using samples of prepared paint
layers, It is shown that it is possible to distinguish between two or thre
e layers. The situation would be more difficult for more complex paint laye
r arrangements. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.