Gharghur will be en fête tomorrow not only because the people of this quaint agricultural town mark the feast of their patron saint St Bartholomew but also because the statue of the saint has just been conserved.

The last intervention on this baroque jewel was carried out in 1912. The seed money for buying the statue was donated by a priest from Gharghur, Fr Orazio Sant.

In his will of April 5, 1758, Fr Sant left 60 skudi to the village church. Of the 60 skudi, 35 together with the interest they accrued were to cover the cost of the statue.

It was found, however, that that amount was not enough to buy a decent statue. In 1771, Bishop Pellerano gave instructions for 50 skudi from the funds of the church of Santa Maria taz-Zellieqa in the limits of the village to go towards the fund for the statue to be ordered from Rome.

In today's money, the fund would come to just over Lm10, which was a significant sum in those days when one takes into account that the annual wage of a soldier in the Dejma was about Lm1.30.

When the statue arrived in Malta it was bare wood, with no pedestal and no niche. It is possible that the statue was painted by Francesco Zahra but the finishing touches could not have been done by great artist because he passed away in 1771.

There is no signature, initials or other markings on the statue other than the imprint of two fingers that are believed to be the mark the artist wanted to leave on the statue as a personal form of branding.

No documentary evidence is available about the author of the statue, although there is a school of thought that believes it is the work of the famous Melchiorre Gafà who made the statue of St Paul for the church that bears this saint's name in Valletta.

This theory is based on the fact that the pose, the fabric and the position of the hands and legs of the two works of art are similar. But the point is that Gafà died in 1667, although it is known that he left a number of unfinished works.

This fact seems to support this theory somewhat in that certain parts of the statue the chisel marks are still evident.

The effigy shows the saint holding a dagger in one hand while hanging over the cloth he wears, he supports the skin of his image because it is said the man was skinned alive.

The statue was restored by a certain Francesco Coleiro in his shop in Valletta in 1912 and it is still told in the village how the people of Gharghur celebrated its return carried shoulder high all the way from the capital city.

When the plan to conserve the statue was hatched five years ago, the Curia's commission on sacred art, after going through three technical reports on the condition of the statue, suggested that the church should commission the Italian restorers Sante Guido Restauro. The conservators were Giuseppe Mantella and Sonia Martino.

"In a bid to conserve as much as possible of the original, the conservators cleaned the statue to the original layer of paint applied in 1772.

"The 'damage' to the statue had been a matter of expansion and contraction of the wood of the statue.

"The conservators found that the statue is made of several parts and the joints were the points where the cracks showed most," Fr Faustino Ellul, the parish priest of Gharghur said.

The firm Darmanin carried out work on the pedestal, including cleaning and re-gilding, keeping as much of the original as possible while the rest of the woodwork was done by master carpenters from Gharghur. This work, which includes the building of a new niche was done on a voluntary basis. The niche incorporates ventilation to allow the wood of the statue to breath.

The church was officially recognised as a parish in 1611 and it was then that St Bartholomew was chosen as the titular saint.