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At
“La Villa de Guadalupe”, you can find “La Parroquia del
Pocito”, a parish church; with an altarpiece .This is a
very important place among Catholics, and/or “Guadalupanos”.
The importance in this church is mainly because of the
story that tells us that in that place, the Virgin of
Guadalupe appeared, for the fourth time. The church was
built by the Architect Tresguerras, at the end of the
XVIII Century. A circular plane, with a mixture of
neoclassic, and pre-neoclassic. Its altarpiece was
losing gold which was originally glided; also some
pieces of wood were missing, due to erosion. This
project took four months to be finished, with a crew of
6 curators and one conservator.
An altarpiece is different kind and quality assembled
wood, holding a fake façade, where architectonic
elements with no structural purpose, but purely
decorative motives, are found.
The Altarpiece was vacuumed using a water filter to
remove dust that had been accumulated for years. This
was done on both sides’ front and back. An analysis was
done, and two different basic problems were found.
Several types of xylophages, and wood parasites, this
problem was eradicated through fumigation, and isolation
during five days.
After airing out the area, the warm holes were mended;
the missing parts and the carved damaged area were
replaced and repaired. A 24k gold layer was glided on
the areas were the gold had vanished. As the parish
priest requested, the existed lines were blur mixing the
old lines with the new lines. Using liquid gold and
varnish to prevent it from darkening in the future. A
superficial cleaning of the oil paintings called “La
Guadalupana” and “Los Cinco Señores” by M. Cabrera was
done. Tables and intermediate resting places were
painted with Mercury based red to match the original
color. Inside the altarpiece two witnesses will be
placed to be used as monitors. This will show the inner
movement of the altarpiece. (The subsoil is hygroscopic,
absorbers water easily, that is why the parish church
has been reinforced, and it is being monitored by
vertical hydraulic supports, which help to cushion the
movements of the subsoil).
While working in the altarpiece, sealing and
waterproofing was applied to the dome, due to the fact
that microscopic cracks were detected in the blue
“Talavera” tiles, and they .used to act as waterproof
material. This treatment was urgent because the water
was leaking inside the dome, and it was damaging the
dome mural, and increasing the humidity of the whole
building. |
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