SS.SEPULCHRE IN JERUSALEM
BAS-RELIEFS ON THE ARCHITRAVE OF THE SS.SEPULCHRE IN JERUSALEM AUTHORITY RESPONSIBLE OF THE RESTORATION: Israeli Antiquity Authority; RESTORER: Ja'cof Shaffer Director Conservation Department; Jack Neuger Head art Conservator sector
AUTHORITY RESPONSIBLE OF THE RESTORATION: Israeli Antiquity Authority;
RESTORER: Ja'cof Shaffer Director Conservation Department; Jack Neuger Head art Conservator sector
Scientific consultancy and chemical analyses: Istituto Centrale per il Restauro di Roma(Central Restoration Institute
History: this involves two marble slabs from Asia Minor, reused during the era of the crusades for decorating the architraves of the Holy Sepulchre. Though the workshop where they were created is uncertain, they were probably crafted by a group of French and Palestine masters sometime around the year 1160. The first depicts a scene from the life of Christ, the second, allegories of the capital sins and virtues. In 1348 a document mentions that the bas-reliefs still had a natural marble colour which therefore dates the probable conservation operations that gave rise to the thick brown oxalate patina to a later period - though nobody knows exactly when.
After the earthquake in 1927 and the consequent loss of fragments, they were transported to the Rockfeller Museum, where over the next decades they were subjected to various restoration attempts, logically limited because of the scarce possibilities and knowledge of the restorers at that time.
The extremely precarious condition of the bas-reliefs, with extensive and ingrained deterioration of the marble support mean that the restoration works can no longer be postponed. They are also necessary as the carrying out of copies of the bas-reliefs has been programmed via no-contact scanning in view of a future remounting of the same on the portals.
