The Ministry of Culture, through the Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain (IPCE), has completed the restoration, with an investment of 171,820 euros, of the main altarpiece of the parish church San Pedro ad Vincula located in the neighborhood of Vallecas (Madrid), composed of the canvas ‘La liberación de San Pedro’, by Francisco Rizi, and the mazonería that frames it.
The intervention, led by the IPCE, has consisted in the recovery of stability and the restoration of the ensemble that decorates the main altar, as well as a smaller picture located to the left of the altar.
Francisco Rizi’s work ‘La liberación de San Pedro’ is a six-metre-high painting, executed with the usual mastery that characterizes the artist, which shows the moment of the apostle’s release by an angel after being taken prisoner by Herod Agrippa.
It was painted in 1669 and was part of a large baroque altarpiece that was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. The work was saved because it was moved, along with other pieces of the church, by the Board of Seizure of the Artistic Treasure that inventoried them and deposited them in the Prado Museum.
Conservation status and intervention phases
The painting showed a precarious state of preservation with accumulation of superficial dirt, numerous failures of both preparation and pictorial film, altered varnishes very darkened and generalized repaints. All these pathologies prevented us from appreciating the great quality of the work.
During the six months that the restoration has lasted, there has been intervention both in the painting and in the mazonería that frames it with the aim of guaranteeing its stability and conservation. After a first phase of general cleaning of the surface dirt, the consolidation of the materials that make them up was carried out, through the color setting of the paint and gold.
The frame that supports the canvas has been preserved, since it is adapted to the curvature of the wall in which it is located, whose surface does not form a flat surface since it covers an old architectural element of the head of the church. This decision resulted in the entire intervention being carried out with the work in vertical, fixing the painting and holding it on the scaffold, adapted to be able to access both the front and the back.
The last phase of restoration consisted of cleaning the varnishes and repaints of the pictorial layer, followed by coating, pictorial reintegration and varnishing. The intervention was carried out by a team of six conservator-restorers with great experience in large format works, and following the criteria of minimum intervention, reversibility and use of stable products compatible with the original materials.
This action is in addition to those already carried out by the Archbishopric of Madrid and the Community of Madrid to guarantee the conservation of this imposing 17th century church, declared a Site of Cultural Interest since 1995, and whose trace is attributed to Juan de Herrera.
Tomorrow, Thursday, September 19 at 11:00 a.m., an event open to the public will be organized in the Vallecan temple itself, where the team that has carried out the restoration will show and explain in detail the works carried out.