Warrants for conservators and restorers are to be introduced soon, possibly by next year, according to the legal consultant for the culture parliamentary secretariat Jeanine Rizzo.
Speaking yesterday at the annual natural forum on cultural heritage, culture Parliamentary Secretary Mario de Marco welcomed the revisions to the Cultural Heritage Act, which would see qualified conservator-restorers being given professional recognition.
Even though Malta has had restoration courses for over a decade, so far graduates were not granted warrants because there were no qualified, recognised practitioners with whom they could train – as required by law.
The system being developed will take into account the different specialisations and practices of conservator-restorers. Therefore, together with the general warrant, they will have a practising certificate specific to ceramics, for example, Dr Rizzo said.
Warrant candidates would be assessed on their portfolio of work. However, restorers with professional experience but no formal qualifications would also be considered.
Pierre Bugeja, a qualified conservator specialised in paintings, welcomed the move, saying this would ultimately benefit art.
“Art is priceless, and this recognition will make it easier for art to be handled professionally. If we have a look at work done before, a lot of times you’ll find that instead of being retouched it would have been painted over, as restorers in the past were usually painters, who more often than not did not respect the original work as much as they should have,” said Mr Bugeja.
He said that in a sense, conservation was akin to medicine, in that when faced with a work of art in need of restoration, conservators were treating a unique, irreplaceable object whose integrity depended on them.
“It’s very easy to get a treatment wrong, and if you haven’t had the proper training you might easily over-clean and ruin the painting,” the conservator said.
He welcomed the professional recognition, saying “it distinguishes us from the dilettantes who say they are restorers. There are restorers who don’t have a degree but are still good; all they’d need is more training in topics such as conservation ethics. It’s important for people to understand that restoration is a profession”.
Mgr Prof. Vinċenz Borg from the Church’s heritage commission said that even though there were good restorers working and being trained in Malta, “we have to be careful who we give important restoration works to, so that we don’t repeat the disasters of the past.”
Labour MP Owen Bonnici welcomed the proposal, saying he had campaigned in favour of it all along.