ABSTRACT
Radiography of paintings is a now well established technique in the art world but the earliest investigations were reported in the medical and scientific literature. The first radiograph of a painting is attributed to Walter Konig of Giessen, a former student of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, in 1896, but the details of his investigation are not well documented. The painting, or rather the fragment of it which remained after it was burnt in a fire in 1763, was exhibited in the 1992 exhibition, together with an accompanying radiograph, which is surely the only radiograph of a painting on which so many features can be demonstrated radiographically. Radiography of museum artefacts preceded that for paintings, the first artefacts to be investigated being Egyptian mummies. Most museum exhibits which have been radiographed are not extremely large, but an exception is this grand piano which is part of the musical instrument collection of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg.
