The painting of the city's saint underwent a complete repair under the talented hands of the professional at the bedside of the works of art.
The whole art of restoration lies in this ability to breathe new life into a work that already exists. “We take care of it, we restore it. It’s not creation”even confirms Anne Rigaud.
At 63, the art curator and restorer already has three decades of practice behind her. Before her, today, in her Gard studio in Logrian-Florian, sits Blessed Gérard de Lunel.
A work signed Fraissines
The painting, signed by the Montpellier painter Fraissines, displays more than suitable dimensions. With a height of around 3 m and a width of 2.30 m, the work, which represents the saint of the town of Lunel, requires the use of a stepladder to restore its splendor.
Created in 1838, on canvas and in oil, it was entrusted last spring to Anne Rigaud by the municipality via the city's cultural department. A project which is part of the work on the Notre-Dame-du-Lac church.
It is moreover essentially in religious art that the restorer – graduated, among others, from Beaux-Arts in Paris and from the National School of Visual Arts (Ensav) of La Cambre, in Brussels – revealed everything his talent.
Two centuries of accumulated dirt and rubble
His first restorations focused on wall frescoes from the 15th century.e century painted by Giacomo Jacquerio in the cloister of Abondance, in Haute-Savoie.
Over the years and her projects, notably the Palais des Papes in Avignon and the Chartreuse de Villeneuve d'Avignon, Anne Rigaud gains in experience and maturity. Until opening his own workshop in the small town of Gard.
Under the height of the beautiful wooden frame of the converted attic, Le Bienheureux Gérard de Lunel has already taken on colors, highlighted by the subdued light of the sun's rays which pierce the roof windows.
In places, the paint held the canvas
After just a few weeks of work, the work is incomparable to the one that arrived in April 2024. “The frame was in good condition while the canvas had several holes and cracksexplains Anne Rigaud, while giving a few glances here and there to always check the work done. On the other hand, there was a lot of rubble at the bottom, between the canvas and the frame.”
Not to mention these pieces which literally fell into powder between the mass of dust and humidity which had gathered there. “In places, it was even the paint that held the canvas and not the other way around!”notes the restaurateur, who had to carry out not one cleaning, as usual, but two.
On the classical-style work, she applied sheets of bolloré paper over the entire surface, glued with rice starch. “This brings up a lot of dirt by capillary action”continues Anne Rigaud.
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Passionate volunteers at the bedside of the saint of Lunel
A document for each stage of the restoration
Two hundred years of accumulation, the painting receiving its first restoration there. Only a lick of varnish was given several decades ago. “But in an unorthodox way. With thick drips and only up to the edge of the frame”the “savior” of Saint Gerard is not surprised. A trace from another time.
“Today this could not happeninforms the woman at the bedside of the heritage in general, of Lunel in these times. On the one hand, professionals in the field are committed to using reversible products. On the other hand, ethics in art restoration imply that everything we do must be known and known, documented and recorded.”
As proof, the 20-page document that Anne Rigaud embellished at each stage of the restoration of Blessed Gérard de Lunel.
Inauguration on 1is June with the Archbishop of Montpellier
A work on which the restorer enjoys working. “It’s typically the kind of painting that reveals itself as the construction progresses.she enjoys saying, her eyes drowning in the creation of Fraissines. We discover how the painter created his work. We truly relive the creative act.”
Details, pencil lines, a whole story that the people of Lunel will be able to admire again when the painting returns to the Saint-Gérard chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Lac which will be officially inaugurated by the Archbishop of Montpellier on Sunday 1is June.
