Other Restorations
Church of San Samuele | Church of San Lio | Monumental Arch | Cornaro Chapel | Saint Mark Healing the Cobbler Anianus | Four Wooden Poles | Façade of Scuola Dalmata | Sarcophagus of Giovanni Priuli | Marco Polo Arch | Tombstones, New Jewish Cemetery, Lido |   Bernabò Chapel and Relief of the Coronation of the Virgin | Photographs of Venetian Architecture and Sculpture  |  19th-Century Glass-Plate Negatives of Venice from the Ferdinando Ongania Collection  |  St. Martin and the Beggar  | Madonna with Child and St. Peter |  Crucifix

  
 

Madonna with Child and St. Peter

Location: Fondamenta Quintavalle
Medium: Marble
Treatment: Cleaning and consolidation
Sponsor Status: California Chapter of Save Venice

With sponsorship funds from the Venetian jeweler Nardi, the California Chapter financed the restoration of this elegant marble relief entitled Madonna and Child with St. Peter, on the Fondamenta Quintavalle near the Church of San Pietro di Castello.  Emanuela Zucchetta of the Superintendency of Monuments and Fine Arts of Venice directed the restoration undertaken by the Anna Keller restoration firm. The fifteenth-century relief depicts the enthroned and crowned Madonna holding the Christ Child on her lap.  St. Peter kneels before them to receive the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  He accepts the Christ Child's gift as the first and original sacrament of Holy Orders, one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. St. Peter is dressed in papal vestments and holds the Gospel.

Because the relief was in such poor condition, restorers had to consolidate the fragmented and flaking marble with resins before they could begin to remove black carbon crusts and discoloration. They removed oxidized-copper support pins and replaced inappropriate mortar with plaster consisting of lime and marble dust. They covered the roof of the relief's stone frame with lead to prevent the infiltration of rainwater. Nylon netting replaced the copper wire grate that had left a greenish residue on the sculpture.