From Dr R. Bondin

Noel Grima’s detailed article on the wall paintings of Perez d’Aleccio in The Palace gave the rightful importance to this important painting cycle. It is unfortunate that I could not attend Salvu Mousu’s lecture as I have no doubt that it was very informative.

The article rightly pointed out the damage that was done to the paintings when they were covered. When the panels were removed the paintings were very heavily damaged and a lot of re-painting was done. A further ‘restoration’ project in the fifties continued to damage the painting with overpainting, which altered a lot of the original details of the paintings. A few years ago, the Valletta Rehabilitation Project started a major project with an international team under the direction of Prof. Heinz Leitner of the University of Dresden. The project was a very complex one as they removed all the overpaintings done. The project revealed an enormous amount of detailing that had been lost in the painting by this, presumably, fast overpainting. (Typically, restorers in Malta have to work against a planned inauguration schedule.) For instance, the Latin names of the virtues were changed into Italian in the 1920s. We uncovered the original wording except for one where we left traces of both.

Unfortunately, the project was only 60 per cent completed as we ran out of funds. Since then, for the past seven years, I have repeatedly tried to find new funding and interest for the project to continue, with no success.

I do hope that Salvu Mousu was able to explain the difference in the area that has been conserved and the area that has not been conserved. The difference is enormous. The paintings suffered not only from very negative past “restoration” projects but also the infiltration of rainwater due to complete lack of maintenance of the roofs, something that was seen to in 1988. Contrary to what the article said, it is the Maltese authorities that stopped the maintenance programme of the roofs for a number of years and not the British.

I know that recently there has been some interest by the Office of the President to continue the project. I sincerely hope that this is possible as this is one of the most important historic documents we have in the form of paintings. One hopes that the work will continue to be done by professional conservators.

Ray Bondin

VALLETTA