The minister said that the association was fulfilling an important role in Maltese society by keeping alive the skill and craft of gilding and particularly by promoting typical Maltese artifacts such as “l-arlogg tal-lira”. He complimented the students from Malta and Gozo on the various artifacts that they were exhibiting.

Work in the exhibition included gilded icons, church artifacts, gilded mirrors and the most desirable of Maltese clocks, known as “l-arlogg tal-lira”. Dr Galea praised the association and stressed the importance of others taking similar initiatives and giving an emphasis to Malta’s heritage and crafts.

The Malta Gilders Association was one of first organisations to take advantage of Malta’s membership of the EU and send eight of its students to Florence under the Leonardo Da Vinci programme. An intensive, full-time, two-week course covered all the aspects of gilding through all the various stages.

The exhibition will be open for the rest of this week.