The idea of digitizing these cross-sections originated from the now terminated research network
MoCMa: Mobility Creates Masters comprising of a number of European Universities and museums/galleries in The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, United Kingdom, and Denmark. The aim of this network was to share knowledge, experience and results among the participating institutions while investigating materials, the background for, and the impact of the coloured ground layers in paintings across Europe from the Early Modern Period.
The development of this open access database, to store and display the many cross-sections, has relied entirely on the digital skills and expertise of the Scientific Department of the
National Gallery London, who have been in charge of designing and building the platform. The technical work was originally funded by the EU Horizon 2020
IPERION-CH project, and is described in one of the
project deliverables. Since the completion of IPERION-CH further development, and exploitation of this work has been carried out with the support of the EU Horizon 2020 projects
IPERION-HS and
SSHOC.