Washington, District of Columbia

The Dominican Friars wished to reinstall two frescos in the rooms of their new house of studies in Washington, DC opposite Catholic University. One depicted the Madonna and Child with adoring supplicants while the other consisted of two pairs of angels which the Friars wished to exhibit as a single panel. The works had been painted directly on the walls of a mansion in Elkins Park, PA which had been converted to a chapel in 1947. Each had been cut out of the original structure along with their supporting wire lath and crated before being shipped to the new site.

Conservation Solutions, Inc. (CSI) conservators were contracted to mount the frescos in the building. They designed mounting systems to accommodate the original backing materials of the frescos within the wall sites that had not had integral mounting systems designed into the openings. CSI’s goal was to install the fragile frescos in a manner that supported and protected them while allowing for future removal if desired.

The Madonna panel had been cut into three sections. These were re-assembled into an opening that was cut in the new wall after careful removal of the existing framing. The embedded wire lath was screwed to plywood supports around the edges and braces were adhered from the existing wall to the fresco back. The joints and cracks that had formed during transport were filled and in-painted to match the original surfaces. The two angel panels were first reinforced with fiberglass backings before being mounted within a stone niche. The joint was then filled and in-painted.

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