The dating of the Torun portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus determined by dendrochronological, art historical and technological studies

Revealing more detail on the biography of art objects, such as their attribution, dating or the artist's methods and techniques, requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes dendrochronology as a means of providing the chronological order. The 550th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) offered an opportunity to conduct an in-depth study of the Toru n portrait of the Great Astronomer, also from a technological and art-historical point of view, and to compare the present findings with the results of the first attempt at dendrochronological dating made in 1987.The analysis of the painting from 2023 showed the following results of dendrochronological dating with the following end dates and time spans of tree ring series: board no. 2 -end date AD 1558, time span AD 1287-1558; and board no. 3 -end date AD 1500, time span AD 1439-1500 and unambiguously demonstrated that this most widely known image of Copernicus was created after his death.While the author of the painting is unknown, the stylistic features may suggest influences of Netherlandish or Flemish painters. The painting panel was made from Baltic oak of Lithuanian or Belarusian origin, and the well-corresponding tree-ring series of numerous Flemish paintings suggest Flanders as the origin of the Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus . A comparison of the results of the two dendrochronological studies - conducted in 1987 and 2023 using vastly different technological capabilities - provides clear evidence that the tree-ring series developed by the pioneers of art-historical dendrochronology, together with their vast databases, can be used with great confidence.(c) 2023 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This article introduces a multidisciplinary approach that uses dendrochronology to reveal more details about the biography of art objects. Through the analysis of the dendrochronology of the portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, it is determined that the painting was created after Copernicus' death and may have been influenced by Dutch or Flemish painters.