When the story of the unfortunate restoration of a 16th century wooden figure of St. George from a church in Estella in Northern Spain began to appear in newspapers (see as an example “Botched Restoration of a Statue in Spain Sets Off a Firestorm” , by Mark A. Walsh, The New York times, June 27, 2018), I thought I would not write about it. After all, every article made the obvious comparison to the 2012 “Beast Jesus” restoration which was also carried out in Spain and suggested that all was not lost as this might end up boosting tourism in the town. But then I thought about how this is the latest wake-up call for the conservation profession. We are not doing enough to educate the owners and guardians of works of art about what conservation is if, in 2018, church authorities will send a complex polychrome sculpture to a fix-it shop rather than to a professional conservator.
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We are not doing enough but the real causes for these recurrent problems aren’t conservator-restorer’s fault.
In the Iberian case I can say that we were in the good path for nearly two decades. Governmental recognition of the conservator-restorer as the lawful person to work on cultural heritage and a growing number of universities providing qualified professionals were two great achievements.
The crisis in the 2000’s came to destroy the progress made so far. We saw the defunding of conservation projects across Europe, allowing the deregulation of the market and pushing conservation professionals to unemployment. We have to keep in mind that conservation funds comes almost entirely from governmental agencies or the EU budgets. In Portugal only 1% of the national budget goes to the Arts and a newly graduated art conservator hardly earn more than $9000 per year. Italy for instance, has been privatizing historical sites in order to reduce preservation expenses. As far as I can see despite great efforts, Spain is still trying to balance their conservation budget and the recent bad publicity.
However, the main reason for the wrong-doing lies in the Catholic Church which owns roughly 50% of the patrimony in Portugal and Spain, and has the right of carrying on with “conservation” projects without professional input.
Since the 1990’s the Catholic Church of Portugal made a considerable progress mentoring priests for the need of caring for their cultural heritage. Still, we have similar cases happening. I do guess these have been less viral than the ones from Spain.
Bottom line, it’s our duty as part of conservation associations to denounce the malpractice and to push lawmakers to produce firm conservation care legislation.