The joy of mending
Restoration was once a word associated with Charles ii; now, it’s generally heard in the same breath as houses, furniture, cars, jewellery and works of art. restoration has morphed from art into science.
its elevation has nothing to do with attachment to brown furniture—the decline in prices means that the cost of putting an old chair or table back on its legs or binding up the frayed sides of an ancient rug will be far greater than the intrinsic value of the piece.
rather, a series of devastating fires— Hampton Court in 1986, Uppark in 1989 and Windsor Castle in 1992—served to stimulate the skills of restorers, to the point that fallen plaster ceilings and panelling, drenched by the fireman’s hose, can be miraculously revived. sometimes, it’s an improvement on what existed before.
in Britain, a country so attached to the fabric of the past, this is a boon. even politicians have woken up to their responsibilities: the steady deterioration of the Houses of Parliament is to be halted at last.
the rise in the value of works of art has made owners, public and private, more alert to their needs. this reaches an extreme in museums, where the white-glove culture of curators can place a barrier between visitors and objects. Private-house owners are apt to be more cavalier, although they risk the tut-tutting of professionals. You can be sure, however, that their collections, from sculptures to watercolours and tapestries, will have been thoroughly catalogued and anything really valuable restored.
restoration is often the quid pro quo for an exhibition loan. the world’s most expensive work of art, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold for £350 million last year (including buyer’s premium), emerged from the shadows of overpainting through diligent restoration; some experts maintain that the amount of paint from Leonardo’s own hand is now rather small. this might be described as the apotheosis of restoration.
For the rest of us, it’s more a question of keeping old friends alive: revitalising the dried-out leather on a desk or replacing the cane of a regency bergère. Judiciously applied superglue can do wonders for reuniting two halves of a Victorian silver-plated candlestick—although for anything more complicated, find a decent silversmith.
as these aren’t museum objects, one of the pleasures is to see how many hands have made unseen contributions, reducing the piece’s value to the purist, perhaps, but providing a direct connection with past owners who put serviceability ahead of preciousness. the broken is made whole again. You don’t have to be a psychologist to see what a joyful thing that is.