US EditionVatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgment’
Restorers remove a calcium lactate salt film caused by nearly 25,000 daily visitors to reveal Michelangelo's original vibrant colors ahead of Easter celebrations.
- Launching the restoration on Saturday, the Vatican Museums began work to remove a whitish residue from the Sistine Chapel fresco, with Barbara Jatta describing it as `a bit like a cataract`.
- Fabio Morresi said scientists identified the deposit as calcium lactate, `invisible to the naked eye`, caused by visitors' perspiration and transpiration, the Vatican said.
- While work continues, visitors will still enter the chapel as Vatican Museums conservators are dabbing the fresco with distilled water through Japanese paper to lift deposits under a large scaffold covered with a reproduction.
- Because the project is so large, officials say this is the biggest facelift in more than three decades after the 1994 removal of some painted cloths, and work continues while the chapel remains open due to scale, following the Sistine Chapel restoration campaign started in 2010.
- Nearly 14 metres high and covering 180 square metres, the fresco includes 391 figures, is sponsored by US donors, and Vatican Museums director Barbara Jatta compared removing the veil to `a bit like a cataract`.
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Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgment’
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” is getting a facial, with restorers removing a chalky white film of salt that has accumulated over the Renaissance masterpiece since its last major renovation three decades ago. The Vatican on Saturday gave the media a sneak peak to the cleaning operation, which is taking place on a floor-to-ceiling scaffolding that has obscured the imposing fresco of heaven and hell that dominates the fron…
A chalky layer of salt has appeared on Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco. The contamination is being removed through meticulous restoration.
Suspended between heaven and hell that Michelangelo imagined, the restorers of the Vatican Museums are trying to clean the imposing mural of The Final Judgment, the masterpiece that presides over the Sistine Chapel. They are removing a whitish layer that has been deposited on the pictorial surface and has extinguished the vibrancy of the figures since the last restoration, which was made just over thirty years ago.
This Saturday, February 28, the Vatican Museums organized a meeting with journalists to illustrate the advances of conservation ...
Associated Press News
Vatican removes salty white film coating Michelangelo's 'The Last Judgment'
Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgement” is getting a facial. The Vatican Museums on Saturday unveiled how restorers are removing a chalky white film of salt that has accumulated over the fresco since its last major renovation three decades ago.
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