Resurrecting the Monastery of St. Anthony

The pivotal figure in initiating the work at St. Anthony’s was one of its residents, Father Maximus el-Anthony. Having received conservation training himself, Father Maximus was well-aware of the potential for restoring the historic parts of the monastery.   

The Moras introduced Father Maximous to Adriano Luzi and Luigi De Cesaris, who had been the head conservators at the Tomb of Nefertari. They became the lead conservators and the projects was facilitated by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE).

To figure out how to best approach the deteriorated 13th century paintings, the conservators studied the condition of the paintings and supporting architecture and compared it to older photographs.

They identified previous restoration attempts and performed test cleanings in areas with varying degrees of repair. These test cleanings helped determining which methods to use during restoration.   

Luzi and De Cesaris, in discussion with Father Maximous, decided that they should minimize the visual distraction of the damage as much as possible in order to present the original paintings as a coherent whole.  

Therefore, they made reversible repairs with paint where the plaster was missing to give viewers the same impression as the original paintings. All the interventions of the conservators were extensively documented and are available for study in the ARCE archives.   

During the conservation, the team discovered layers of overpainting applied over the centuries that revealed alterations to the original designs. Sometimes the scenes were painted over to reinvigorate the colors, other times details like colors or even the position of facial features were changed.