Science to the rescue of art

Vincent van Gogh's Sun-flowers are losing their yellow cheer and the unsettling apricot horizon in Edvard Munch's The Scream is turning a dull ivory.

Some of our most treasured paintings are fading, warn experts who would like more money for the use of sophisticated technology to capture the masters' original palettes before the works are unrecognizably blighted.

"Our cultural heritage is suffering from a disease," Robert van Langh, director of conservation and restoration at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, told AFP this week.