Conservation & Heritage Issue 49 October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 50
In April 2020, our client, the Foreign Commonwealth
& Development Office (FCDO), commissioned Hare &
Humphreys to develop a comprehensive conservation
plan, to assess the feasibility of restoring three of the
main ground floor ceilings.
After a period of meticulous collaborative planning and the
careful removal of remnants of two remaining artworks - in
a parlous state - restoration of the ceiling surfaces could
finally begin. The remnants - long-forgotten masterpieces
(L’Automne from ‘Les Quatre Saisons 1854-1855 and Les
Saisons 1857’ both by William-Adolphe Bouggereau) - were
now placed securely into conservation storage, while the
painstaking process of returning the ceiling embellishment
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to something approaching its original splendour was set in
motion. The heavily decorated surfaces of the three ceilings,
including many of the figurative elements painted within
the wider scheme, could now be restored.
Once all three ceilings had been carefully conservationcleaned and meticulously restored, this phase of the project
was complete. The work had required extensive repairs to
much of the historic plasterwork and gilding, along with
significant and challenging repairs to large sections of
the severely damaged decorative paintwork. Despite the
complexity of this task, it was successfully completed - on
time and within budget - by mid-August 2022, allowing the
scaffolds to be struck.
Conservation & Heritage Journal
48
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