Stage 1: Cleaning

In order to apply a paint treatment to the restored statue, it would be necessary to prepare the surface so there's no loose or dusty material, however, when I bagan to remove the dirt with only a stiff kitchen brush it became apparent the the dirt had become ingrained in the plaster surface, so I had to switch to using a very fine foam-backed abrasive pad, and in places some abrasive cream cleaner with a toothbrush. This successfully removed the ingrained dirt as can be clearly seen in the images above. With a fully cleaned surface it will be easier to undertake the reconstruction work, and the final paint treatment.

St. Anthony Statue - Damage Assessment...

After picking up the statue, I fully surveyed it.
The statue stands 1205mm tall, and is of a hollow plaster construction about 25mm average thickness. It has circular cross-section metal armature wire embedded into some of the limbs and details. The baby Jesus figure has a tapered square cross-section pin at the waist so that the upper body was removable, I assume for protection of the delicate arms during transportation.
two major problems were obvious...

1. Damage -- the statue had been badly damaged by what looks like something having fallen on it? The torso of the baby Jesus figure had broken off, and was very badly broken, finger tips and fragments were missing, and parts were shattered and broken through, only being held together by the internal wire armature. Also, previous repair attempts had left quite a lot of surface glue which would have to be removed and repaired. The actual figure of St.Anthony had a large hole broken through the chest just behind the surface where the removable upper part of the baby Jesus figure attaches. The repair of all this damage would include a lot of dissasembly of broken/shattered areas, removal of old armature in places, and then reassembly, bonding and re-sculpting of missing elements.

2. Dirt -- the statue was covered in a thick layer of built-up dirt which, although giving a 'weathered' appearance which is sometimes desirable, was a totally unstable surface on which to make repairs.

Current Statue Details

Most of the current statues appear to be made of a similar stone to the surrounding architecture, so they really complement the building. The best example is the Sacred Heart figure [shown above] which is amazing -- even with the slightly unfortunate speaker positioning!

The St. Anthony figure is pure white plaster which would probably stand out as quite stark amongst these other figures - so after discussion with Fr. Tim, we decided that a paint effect on the restored St. Anthony would probably work best so he would harmonise with the existing statues as part of a set. The photos above show details of the variegated colours and patterns in the interior stonework.

Cathedral Interior

We visited Arundel Cathedral to survey the building interior and get a feel for where the restored statue would be displayed, and to look at the style of existing statues in the cathedral. The Cathedral interior has been completely cleaned, and these photos give an imperssion of the amazing warm light that is reflected from the stonework.

Arundel Cathedral

Three views of Arundel Cathedral exterior which we visited in April 2006.

Having already restored two plaster statues for St. Joseph's Church in Bracknell [a statue of St. Joseph and a corpus figure] Fr. Tim, a colleague of Fr. Chris Rutledge, who had seen the restorations asked if I would be interested in restoring a statue of St. Anthony for Arundel Cathedral. He kindly delivered the statue to St. Josephs Church, and I decided to undertake the project.