The sceptre was removed because it was undersized, and also broken

the figure of Christ, darkened by candle soot and detritus, was not easily seen against the dark canopy.

As part of the restoration, we returned the carved wooden phial of oil to the top of St. Walburge’s rule book

Restoring a neo gothic saint - or two... Statues before restoration When the statue of Saint Teresa of Avila arrived she was wearing some uncharacteristic green eyeshadow. To be fair, in her teenage years Teresa was hailed as a ‘bit of a looker’, but once she’d had her conversion the trinkets and make-up were definitely ‘out’. While cloistered religious tend to a pale complexion, St. Teresa’s face appeared insipid when compared to the three other figures I had restored. Give

A son's gift We were asked to restore this carved wooden statue of Saint Joseph and the child Jesus by a local man, who had bought it some years ago in an antique shop for his mother. The seller had said it was carved in France, and hailed from the 1850's. As we regularly restore statuary from this period, I'd happily agree with the seller's appraisal. It had not fared well over the years. It stood 57 inches tall and around 30 inches wide. Only experience can tell if a statu

The first statue of Our Lady of Lourdes The statue at the grotto of Lourdes is the work of sculptor Joseph-Hughes Fabisch. He was renowned as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, and became its director in 1874. The statue is his most famous work. It was commissioned by the Lacour sisters who wanted a statue faithful to Bernadette's description. A small plaster statue had been placed in the grotto which seemed inadequate for the growing numbers of the faithful t

Carved in Belgium 1858, restored in the U.K. 2018 ​Father wanted his Gothic stations of the cross to look as beautiful as possible. Created in 1858, the stations needed a sensitive approach to refurbishment, ensuring any new repairs married well with the age of the artworks. Make do and Mend The stations had been restored once before, in 1948, just after the war. During this period, some makeshift changes had been made, the bright colours of the frames had been painted over i