Two paintings made by the same artist in 1616 to depict The Dinner and The Dance
celebrations of the Pipenpoyse Wedding were examined at Stichting Restauratie Atelier Limburg,
Maastricht, Netherlands. In addition to a shared provenance these paintings demonstrated similarities in their composition and identical materials and techniques. However, the paintings exhibited
dramatic differences in their condition, and inconsistencies between their previous treatments were
apparent. One of the paintings, The Dinner, had undergone repeated surface treatments of varnishing and varnish removal, whereas the other, The Dance, had never been varnished. The paintings
thus presented an opportunity to potentially examine the accumulative effects of paint surface treatments using organic solvents. Detailed depth profiles of the two paintings were measured using
single-sided nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). This type of NMR is sensitive to physical properties of the material such as hardness and is a contact-free technique. The T2 relaxation times,
indicative of the hardness or stiffness of a material, were found to be different for the two paintings
and consistent with the observed visual and tactile differences. With regard to these findings the
contribution from the repeated exposures to natural resins and organic solvents during paint surface treatments is considered. Various developments in current conservation practice have aimed to
restrict the penetration of solvent into paint films and thereby reduce related solvent effects. Initial
findings from investigations using single-sided NMR on model paint films to compare the effects of
such adapted approaches are presented.