692 ISSN 1063-7745, Crystallography Reports, 2018, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 692–698. © Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2018. Original Russian Text © V.P. Glazkov, E.S. Kovalenko, M.M. Murashev, K.M. Podurets, A.A. Veligzhanin, N.N. Kolobylina, V.A. Rastorguev, M.G. Tulubenskiy, E.Y. Tereschenko, P.K. Kashkarov, E.B. Yatsishina, M.V. Kovalchuk, 2018, published in Kristallografiya, 2018, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 670–676. Study of Bronze Statues “John the Baptist” and “Dancing Cupid” from the Collections of the Pushkin State Museum V. P. Glazkov a , E. S. Kovalenko a , M. M. Murashev a , K. M. Podurets a, *, A. A. Veligzhanin a , N. N. Kolobylina a , V. A. Rastorguev b , M. G. Tulubenskiy b , E. Y. Tereschenko a,c , P. K. Kashkarov a , E. B. Yatsishina a , and M. V. Kovalchuk a,c a National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute,” Moscow, 123182 Russia b The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 119019 Russia c Federal Research Center “Crystallography and Photonics,” Moscow, 119333 Russia *e-mail: Podurets_KM@nrcki.ru Received June 1, 2017 Abstract—Bronze statues “John the Baptist” and “Dancing Cupid” from the collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts have been investigated at the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute.” These statues were previously damaged in fire. Before carrying out restoration, it was necessary to perform their complex study, including identification of statue materials; elemental and phase analysis of contaminations; estimation of the state of surfaces and internal parts; and detection of technological elements, as well as hid- den defects, corroded parts, and cracks. To this end, scanning electron microscopy with X-ray microanalysis, synchrotron radiation diffraction, and neutron radiography and tomography have been used. DOI: 10.1134/S1063774518040077 INTRODUCTION In this paper, we report the first results of the study of sculptures stored in the funds of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (GMII), which was performed at the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Insti- tute” (NRC KI). The statues under study, delivered to the museum in 1946 among the so-called “trophy art”, originate from the collection of the former Kaiser Friedrich Museum (Berlin). These objects, stored along with many other Berlin museum collections in a protected shelter in Berlin (Friedrichshain bunker), were damaged by fire in May, 1945 [1, 2]. Being trans- ferred to the Soviet Union in damaged and fragmented state, these statues have been stored for a long time in the Pushkin museum storage. The state of these objects made very difficult their restoration and expo- sure. This circumstance also impeded their return to the German Democratic Republic in 1958 within the large-scale art restitution program [3, 4]]. In 2015, GMII started a joint project with the Bode Museum, the assignee of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, which was aimed at restoring the aforemen- tioned objects of art and bringing them back into sci- entific discourse. A necessary condition for the funda- mental restoration of sculptures is their preliminary complex study, including the elemental and phase analysis of contaminations, examination of the condi- tion of surfaces, and exact identification of materials. One also needs information about the condition of metal, including the presence of hidden defects, cor- roded parts, cracks, technological components of casting forms, etc. The bronze statue “John the Baptist” and the stat- uette “Dancing Cupid” (Fig. 1) were investigated at the NRC KI. They are considered to be masterpieces of the museum collection, because researchers associ- ate them with the famous Italian sculptor Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, about 1386–1466). The statue “John the Baptist” was brought into sci- entific discourse as Donatello’s work by Wilhelm von Bode based on the stylistic similarity to Donatello’s known works. It was among some prominent objects of art acquired by the Berlin museums from the collec- tion of noble Florentine family Strozzi in 1878. This statue was repeatedly published; it became well- known after the exhibition held in Florence in 1887 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the sculptor. The attribution of this statue to Donatello had remained generally accepted until 1957, when an influential English historian of art H.W. Janson, who published a monograph about Donatello, excluded “John the Baptist” from the list of his works. This opinion was shared by another prominent English his- torian of Italian Renaissance sculpture, D.W. Pope- Hennessy, who suggested a later dating (1470) and attributed this statue to Antonio del Pollaiuolo. How- ever, in 1985, a record of Donatello’s statue of Saint John was found in the inventories of the Martelli fam- CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC METHODS IN HUMANITARIAN SCIENCES