All I want for Christmas!

I do not have any old masters hidden away in the attic. There are no ‘Clarice Cliffs’ currently being used as plant trays in the potting shed, because there is no potting shed. All of my silver is plated and all that glitters here is most certainly not gold.

I have never inherited anything that turned out to be by Fabergee; the most expensive egg I have ever had in my possession probably came from Kinder.

Like most people though I have at some point sat down to watch programmes like ‘Cash in the Attic’ or ‘The Antiques Roadshow – the latter once because you can play a very good game involved copious consumption of alcohol, based on the experts’ estimates. I kid you not.

To be honest, my taste in painting isn’t really ‘old mastery’ at all – I would probably trade the Mona Lisa for a three cel overlay from Bugs Bunny’s ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’

Yes, I prefer hand-painted animation originals to hand painted Italian originals. So, sue me.

However, I have now found a reason for collecting (other) great works of art! It’s the Artax, the first portable μ-XRF Spectrometer from Bruker AXS. This is a seriously great piece of kit, suitable for establishing the authenticity of the pigments used on any suspect masterpiece that may turn up on ‘the Roadshow’ or for more serious research into the composition of paints used at any period. Actually, it’s got a whole range of applications, not just galleries and museums, but process control, analytical services and material science.

What I especially like about it, apart from the fact that no masterpieces are damaged during its operation, or that portable really does mean portable, is that it looks the way that equipment was always supposed to look ‘in the future’. There is the ‘business end’, looking impressively minimalistic, a suitably robotic arm, and the black box (Ok, grey) from which emerge the comprehensive results – and in 30 minutes too!

You know it’s almost enough to make me reconsider my attitude towards collecting old masterpieces.

Where’s the nearest ‘car boot sale’?