The bronze door of the Naxxar parish church has been fully conserved in the first major bronze project to be carried out in Malta by Maltese restorers.
It has taken Robert Cassar and James Licari about four months to dismantle the door, document the pieces, treat them for corrosion, polish and put them back together again.
The restored door will be inaugurated today at 8 p.m.
The restorers are members of Recoop, a cooperative founded by six professionally trained university graduates. Recoop was set up one and a half years ago and its members were the first cohort of students who graduated with honours, conservation and restoration studies from the Institute for Conservation and Restoration Studies, at the time under the Malta Centre for Restoration.
"The bronze door is made up of about 750 pieces excluding bolts and screws that are fitted to the wooden door of the church. The backdrop consists of a copper alloy sheet while the other parts were cast by the lost wax method," Mr Cassar said.
The bronze door was initially inaugurated in 1913 together with the new façade of the church. It is the only bronze door in Malta apart from the one inaugurated recently at the basilica of St George in Victoria.
It is not known how much the door had cost. It had been commissioned and paid for through a donation by a certain Dun Luqa Zammit and his brother Antonio. The design is the work of Pio Cellini, a Roman who was commissioned to carry out other works here including the canopy over the main altar at the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Valletta, the chapel of St Michael in the church of St Paul's Shipwreck in Valletta and the ceiling designs of the parish church of Nadur.
In 1952, the door was dismantled and cleaned by Innocenz Agius, a master blacksmith from Naxxar, a town that is still renowned for its top-notch blacksmiths.
"Each part of the design has its own particular method of fastening as a security measure," Mr Licari explained.
Recoop was commissioned to carry out this task by the archpriest of Naxxar, Canon Evan Caruana. Canon Caruana is the kind of person who makes it a point to get works of art restored wherever he serves, the two restorers said.
The restoration process starts with a preliminary report to assess and record by photographic means the damage, such as active corrosion and deposits that harm the bronze as well as how the job is to be tackled. Once the documentation is completed, the intervention starts by dismantling the door piece by piece. Each piece is numbered and photographed.
"The corrosion on the door was caused mainly by natural weathering, airborne sea salt particles, vehicle exhaust and previous treatments and interventions. Needle spots of light green on the bronze signal the presence of corrosion. Bronze corrodes naturally leaving a patina, called the noble patina, that acts as a stable protective layer to the metal. It is important to protect and retain this patina," Mr Licari said.
The airborne salt particles lead to the formation of copper chloride that has to be neutralised. Cleaning with water and the effect of rain lead to the formation of acids that eat into the bronze. In 1987, in a vandal act, red paint was splashed on the door which was cleaned in the best way possible at the time.
"This intervention was the first large bronze project carried out by a team of Maltese restorers. After cleaning with chemical and mechanical means, a stabilisation process was initiated to neutralise the corrosion. The bronze was then sealed with several protective coatings and waxed," Mr Cassar added.
The final report compiled by the restorers consists of a detailed description of the intervention complete with photographic record and proposals on how to maintain the door. The intervention does not end here, as a series of subsequent checks need to be done.
The two restorers have been on study working trips where they worked on mosaics in Pompei and on two sites supervised by the Istituto Centrale Del Restauro.
The members of Recoop are specialised in the restoration of paintings, stone sculptures, architecture, ceramic, glass and metal artefacts, stone and marble. Currently, these two restorers are involved in the supervision of the work being carried out by the craftsmen who restore and maintain the monuments and tomb stones of St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta as well as supervising the restoration of the façade at St Dorothy's convent in Mdina.
ReCoop members have also been involved in restoring most artefacts in the collection of Palazzo Falson popularly known as Norman House run by Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, which included many paintings, weaponry and marble busts.
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