Biography and publications | Philippe Walter - Technological innovation Liliane Bettencourt

Biography

Philippe Walter is a chemist specializing in the study of cultural heritage materials. Born in 1967 in Saint-Cloud, he studied physics and materials science as part of the inter-university magistère in physics at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud - Lyon (1986-1990). He then joined the Musées de France research laboratory and the geochemistry laboratory at Toulouse's Paul-Sabatier University, where he obtained his doctorate in Earth Sciences in 1993. Recruited to the CNRS by the Institut de Chimie, he was in charge of, then director of research at the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France until 2011. He headed the CNRS team there from 2008 to 2011 and, in early 2012, set up the Laboratoire d'archéologie moléculaire et structurale at Pierre-et-Marie-Curie University (Paris 6), a new joint research unit with the CNRS.

His research has led him to develop innovative instruments for the analysis of micro-samples or directly on works of art. He contributed to the development of ion beam analysis with the AGLAE gas pedal installed at the Palais du Louvre, where he headed the team from 2003 to 2011, and where he is currently the scientific director of the New AGLAE project to transform the gas pedal. He is also interested in the use of synchrotron radiation to analyze ancient cosmetics and paintings. He played a pioneering role in this field, and brought the national community together by proposing the creation of the Synchrotron and Heritage research group, of which he was deputy director from 2004 to 2007. At the same time, he led the construction of prototypes of portable, lightweight analysis instruments, enabling work to be carried out on archaeological sites or in museums. These tools have enabled him to carry out a number of studies, notably on the body paintings of mummies in China and Chile. To carry out these technological developments, he has worked with numerous experimental teams in France and abroad, in particular in Grenoble with the Néel Institute and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF).

His work in the field of archaeology and art has led him to cover a wide range of periods, from prehistory to the modern era. He has directed various research programs, including one on ancient cosmetic habits, in collaboration with L'Oréal's research laboratories for 16 years. He characterized the compositions and properties of make-up, both on female statuettes from the Upper Paleolithic and in Egyptian and Roman blush bottles. He has also studied the paintings of ornate caves, Egyptian and Greco-Roman tombs and Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci. His work helps us to understand the evolution of techniques used during the artist's lifetime or over the course of centuries, and to better understand those who conceived and produced these works. This research also shows that artistic manifestations are a possible key to rediscovering the history of chemistry.

Author of 200 publications both in physical chemistry journals and in the fields of archaeology and history, and invited to some 175 conferences, he has received several national and international distinctions: the prize of the Physical Chemistry Division of the Société Française de Chimie (1994), the bronze (2000) and silver (2008) medals of the CNRS, the Grammatikakis-Neuman prize of the Académie des Sciences (2004), the IxCore Research Foundation prize (2009) and the Franco-American Franklin-Lavoisier prize, which he received in Philadelphia in 2010.

Involved in the development of the science for heritage community, he was responsible, on the French side, for the working group for the development of interdisciplinary research in archaeology set up by the Franco-American Joint Committee on Science and Technology (2008-2012), and was a member of the selection committees for the LURE and ESRF synchrotron projects, the scientific council of the MNHN Prehistory Department, the SPIRIT European ion beam analysis infrastructure, and the "Milieux, Cultures et Sociétés du passé et du présent" doctoral school at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. He has co-organized a dozen international colloquia and summer schools in France and abroad, and was one of the initiators of the cycle of thematic schools on molecular and structural archaeology created in 2002 by Hubert Curien and Georges Tsoucaris at the Ettore Majorana International Centre in Erice, Sicily, and of a new series of American conferences(Gordon Research Conference on scientific methods in Cultural Heritage research).

Keen to share his discoveries with as many people as possible, he was one of the curators of two exhibitions on the history of beauty, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in 2002 and at the Musée National du Moyen Âge in Paris in 2009: Le Bain et le Miroir, soins du corps et cosmétiques de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance. He is a regular contributor to the media, and wrote a popular work in 2013: L'Art-Chimie, enquête dans le laboratoire des artistes. He teaches at the University of Liège and helped set up a continuing education diploma on law and scientific analysis in the appraisal of works of art at the University of Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas.

Selected bibliography

Books for the general public

L'art-chimie, enquête dans le laboratoire des artistes

Walter P. et Cardinali F., L’art-chimie enquête dans le laboratoire des artistes, Michel de Maule, coll. « Beau livre histoire », 2009.
Le Bain et le miroir, Soins du corps et cosmétiques de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance

Bardies-Fronty I., Bimbenet-Privat M. et Walter P. (dir.), Le Bain et le miroir, Soins du corps et cosmétiques de l'Antiquité à la Renaissance, Catalogue de l'exposition présentée au Musée du Moyen Âge – Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny et au Musée national de la Renaissance d'Ecouen, Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Livres d'Art », 2009.

Selection of scientific publications

Hair Fiber as a Nanoreactor in Controlled Synthesis of Fluorescent Gold Nanoparticles

Haveli S.D., Walter P., Patriarche G., Ayache J., Castaing J., van Elslande E., Tsoucaris G., Wang P., Kagan H.B., (2012) "Hair Fiber as a Nanoreactor in Controlled Synthesis of Fluorescent Gold Nanoparticles", Nano Letters, 12, 6212-6217.
Unexpected Materials in a Rembrandt Painting Characterized by High Spatial Resolution Cluster-tof-sims Imaging

Sanyova J., Cersoy S., Richardin P., Laprevote O., Walter P., Brunelle A., (2011) "Unexpected Materials in a Rembrandt Painting Characterized by High Spatial Resolution Cluster-tof-sims Imaging", Analytical Chemistry, 83, 753-760.
Revealing the Sfumato Technique of Leonardo da Vinci by X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy

de Viguerie L., Walter P., Laval E., Mottin B., Solé V.A. (2010), "Revealing the Sfumato Technique of Leonardo da Vinci by X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy", Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 49 (35), 6125-6128.
Finding out Egyptian Gods' Secret Using Analytical Chemistry: Biomedical Properties of Egyptian Black Makeup Revealed by Amperometry at Single Cells

Tapsoda I., Arbault S., Walter Ph., Amatore C. (2010), "Finding out Egyptian Gods' Secret Using Analytical Chemistry: Biomedical Properties of Egyptian Black Makeup Revealed by Amperometry at Single Cells", Analytical Chemistry, 82, 457-460.
Composition of Renaissance Paint Layers: Simultaneous Particle Induced X-ray Emission and Backscattering Spectrometry

de Viguerie L., Beck L., Salomon J., Pichon L. et Walter Ph., « Composition of Renaissance Paint Layers: Simultaneous Particle Induced X-ray Emission and Backscattering Spectrometry », Analytical Chemistry, 2009, vol. 81, n° 19, p. 7960-7966.
Probing the Structure of Heterogeneous Diluted Materials by Diffraction Tomography

Bleuet P., Welcomme E., Dooryhee E., Susini J., Hodeau J. L. et Walter Ph., « Probing the Structure of Heterogeneous Diluted Materials by Diffraction Tomography », Nature Materials, vol. 7, 2009, p. 468-472.
Identification of Ritual Blood in African Artifacts Using TOF-SIMS and Synchrotron Sadiation Microspectroscopies

Mazel V., Richardin P., Debois D., Touboul D., Cotte M., Brunelle A., Walter P. et Laprevote O., « Identification of Ritual Blood in African Artifacts Using TOF-SIMS and Synchrotron Sadiation Microspectroscopies », Analytical Chemistry, 79, 2007, p. 9253-9260.
Evidence for Early Use of Nanotechnology from an Ancient Hair Dyeing Formula

Walter P., Welcomme E., Hallégot P., Zaluzec N.J., Deeb C., Castaing J., Veyssière P., Bréniaux R., Lévêque J. L. et Tsoucaris G., « Evidence for Early Use of Nanotechnology from an Ancient Hair Dyeing Formula », Nanoletters 6, 2006, p. 2215-2219.
Ion Beam Analysis of Art Works: 14 Years of Use in the Louvre

Dran J. C., Salomon J., Calligaro T. et Walter Ph., « Ion Beam Analysis of Art Works: 14 Years of Use in the Louvre », Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B, vol. 219-220, 2004, p. 7-15.
Making Make-up in Ancient Egypt

Walter Ph., Martinetto P., Tsoucaris G., Bréniaux R., Lefebvre M.A., Richard G., Talabot J. et Dooryhée E., « Making Make-up in Ancient Egypt », Nature, vol. 397, 1999, p. 483-484.