## 3 Results and Discussion
### The Nature of the Materials and Their Preservation State
The fact that the mass ratio of the chemical elements corresponds to the composition of the chalk powder and the red earth for the bolus, indicates that the preparation was well preserved. Regarding the degraded varnish (from P2 sample), it is inserted with soot dirt (C, O and S) and atmospheric dust (Ca, Mg, Na, K, Fe and Cl). The red pigment (P3 sample) is based on cinnabar, which contains, in addition to mercury and sulfur, a number of elements specific to colored earths (Si, Al, Ca, Mg, Na, K and Fe), that were mixed with lead Minimum (Pb and O) and ceruse (Pb, C and O) to give brightness to the color [18; 19; 33]. The blue pigment (P4 sample) is based on ultramarine or Lapis Lazuli (Si, Al, Mg, Na, K, Fe and Cl), applied on preparation layers based on chalk powder and gypsum (C, O, S and Ca). Figure 11: SEM microphotographs in BSE (200–1000\(\times\)): (**a**) Preparation; (**b**) Varnish and embedded dirt; (**c**) Red pigment; (**d**) Blue pigment; (**e**) Silver foil with bronze marks; (**f**) Gold foil with bronze marks. The silver foil (P5 sample) is made of an Ag alloy with about 11% Au, and the gold one (P6 sample) has a low content of Ag, about 3.5%, along with traces of regilding with fine brass powder (Cu and Zn), which contains traces of degraded and soot varnish (C, O, Si, Al, Ca and Fe). Regilding traces, analyzed on a representative (well-preserved) area of P2 sample, are represented by thin layers of bronze that were applied after the manufacturing of the icon by empirical restoration interventions. These layers are based on fine brass powder (Cu and Zn) and contain traces of degraded varnish and soot. The presence of cinnabar in the composition of the red pigment, with traces of Minuum and red earth, shows that the painter used the natural Vermillion, which also indicates the antiquity of the icon, most likely made in the first half of the 19 th century [16; 17; 33; 52]. Some of the trace elements come from the preparation (chalk powder), varnish and dirt (soot and atmospheric dust). In addition to Vermillion and ceruse, the red pigment also contains burnt Sienna (colored earth used to make shadows and bolus). This is marked by the presence of iron, aluminum, silicon, magnesium, sodium and potassium [16; 17; 33]. The chemical composition of the blue pigment is close to that of Ultramarine (Lapis Lazuli) with the molecular formula Na\({}_{8}\)Al\({}_{6}\)Si\({}_{6}\)O\({}_{24}\)S\({}_{4}\), with some impurities from the dirt and primer [16; 17; 33]. Based on the above premises regarding the nature of the pictorial materials, evaluated from the elemental composition EDX (Table 1), some of the samples were correlated with the \(\upmu\)-FTIR analysis. Thus, out of the six pictorial materials analyzed by SEM-EDX, only three, that absorb IR, were investigated by \(\upmu\)-FTIR; the preparation (from the area with missing gilding, which contains bolus and chalk powder-P2 sample) and the red (P3 sample) and blue (P4 sample) pigments. The values of specific group vibrations in the two regions of the FTIR spectrum, 4000-1500 cm\({}^{-1}\) specific for valence vibrations (\(\upupsilon\)) and 1500-600 cm\({}^{-1}\) for deformation vibrations (8) [19; 27; 28; 29; 40; 41] are shown in Table 2.  
By corroborating the results obtained by SEM-EDX and \(\upmu\)-FTIR analyses, their conservation state was established, besides the precise confirmation of the nature of the three pictorial materials and their evolution in time, after the manufacturing of the icon.