Major restoration project for 14 paintings at St Mary’s Cathedral

They were held in place by lengths of bicycle chain. Birds even did their droppings on them. But 14 paintings at St Mary’s Cathedral are regaining their former beauty in a major restoration project.

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They were held in place by lengths of bicycle chain and increasingly rusty wire.

Rainwater trickled on them through the roof and birds even did their droppings on them.

But 14 French oil paintings at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral — bought in 1885 and weighing 200kg each — are regaining their former beauty in a major restoration project.

Art conservation expert David Stein and his team are cleaning, retouching, revarnishing and reinstalling the cathedral’s Stations of the Cross, each picture showing a scene from the day Christ was crucified.

Seven of the paintings are undergoing treatment in Stein’s studio in Alexandria. When they’re rehung, the other seven can take their turn.

Conservator David Stein has been tasked with restoring the 14 paintings of the Stations of the Cross at St Mary’s Cathedral. Picture: Dylan Robinson

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Not just decorative, the pictures play a devotional role where visitors to the cathedral stop in front of each one in turn, Stein said.

The paintings were made in the L. Chovet studio in Paris, which mass produced religious works for churches.

The Stations of the Cross were commissioned by Cardinal Moran and have been part of the cathedral’s fabric for 130 years. Every day, they are seen by 3000 visitors to the Gothic Revival edifice.

Each canvas is the size of a double bed — even bigger if you count their massive English oak frames.

The tops of those frames almost touch the vaulted cathedral ceiling.

But when the church called Stein to clean the paintings in situ, he realised the church had a much bigger job on its hands.

The historic paintings have been part of the church for 130 years. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Each canvas is equivalent to the size of a double bed. Picture: Dylan Robinson

The pictures were subject to a “crude” restoration about 80 years ago, Stein said.

“At that stage, they were so badly damaged from the water and the elements that they were taken off their stretchers and glued down to plywood,” he said.

“There are a lot of problems in that process. “Deformation, buckling, bubbles.”

That restorer did “heavy handed” repainting of areas that Stein had to scrape off with a knife.

The first issue Stein faced, however, was getting the pictures down from the cathedral walls.

“They were put up with bicycle chain and very rusty wire,” Stein said.

“I think they probably thought it was a good idea at the time.”

If the steel supports underneath the pictures had failed, they would have been at risk of falling.

The bicycle chain is being replaced with braided stainless steel rigging wire.

The restoration will take some time after the pictures were subject to “crude” restoration. Picture: Dylan Robinson

In fact, a rigger who worked with Cirque du Soleil was one of the five people who removed the pictures from the cathedral. The problems were immediately clear.

“They’re dusty, dirty, grimy — there are drips and bird poo and all sorts of stuff that we found on these paintings,” Stein said.

His team cleaned off the old yellow varnish with an organic solvent, and repainted small areas with soluble paint.

Then it was into the extraction booth to be sprayed with a non yellowing synthetic resin that protects the paint and rejuvenates the colours “like placing a dusty stone in water”.

The frames are being repaired by St Mary’s Cathedral’s carpenter and cleaned and restored by David Stein and Co. While the paintings are grand and impressive, “they’re not great works of art by any assessment”, Stein said.

He suspects the same model was used for all the figures in the pictures.

“You even wonder whether Mary is also Jesus without a beard,” he said.

To support the paintings’ conservation, email [e-mail] or call the Development and Fundraising Office on [phone]