The conservation of the works of art represent a topic of global interest. The development of effective tools based on advanced technology for analysing and monitoring their health-state is essential to assuring their preservation. In fact, detecting and preventing the formation of defective areas or assessing for an accurate pre-restoration analysis are the main objectives of non-destructive inspection. Active thermography is a well-known non-invasive imaging technique and reliable tool for providing a fast and low-cost analysis of a work of art. In this study we combine the potential of Principal Component Thermography and of Absolute Thermal Contrast to analyse thermal images acquired in-situ on a poplar panel painting representing an original artwork dating in the end of XVI century. We first optimized the thermal stimulation parameters in the laboratory using special phantom samples. These samples were specially made by reproducing in high fidelity the structural properties and materials of the artwork in order to perform effectively the preliminary tests. Then we moved the equipment in-situ by performing the non-destructive inspection directly on the real artwork. We have developed a specific experimental protocol that combines active thermography with two specific and appropriate image processing modalities that allowed us the effective detection of various types of defects in the painting layer. We report a complete analysis and deep discussion concerning the detection and characterization of the defects. Results show that our diagnostic protocol is a powerful tool in assessing the pre-restoration health-state and suitable for in situ analysis of wood artworks.

艺术品的保存代表了全球关注的主题。开发基于先进技术的有效工具来分析和监视其健康状况对于确保其保存至关重要。实际上，检测和防止缺陷区域的形成或评估准确的还原前分析是无损检查的主要目标。主动式热成像技术是众所周知的非侵入性成像技术，是可靠的工具，可提供对艺术品的快速且低成本的分析。在这项研究中，我们结合了主成分热成像技术和绝对热对比技术的潜力，分析了在杨木面板上就地获得的热图像，这些图像代表了16世纪末的原始艺术品。我们首先使用特殊的体模样品在实验室中优化了热刺激参数。这些样品是通过高保真复制艺术品的结构特性和材料以有效执行初步测试而专门制成的。然后，我们通过直接对真实艺术品进行无损检查来现场移动设备。我们已经开发出了一种特定的实验方案，该方案将主动热成像技术与两种特定且适当的图像处理方式相结合，使我们能够有效地检测涂装层中各种类型的缺陷。我们报告有关缺陷检测和表征的完整分析和深入讨论。