Saving a Stone Stag

On a recent visit to the Chateau Royal d'Amboise I encountered a young stone conservator busy working on the limestone stag's head from the frieze over the door of the Chapel of Saint Hubert.

It takes a lot of concentration...

She was carefully removing a layer of plaster from part of the stag's head with a dental drill. She explained to us that the plaster was a 19C repair, to join the face of the stag on to the back of the head. At some time in the 19th century a pair of metal antlers were inserted into the head too. Both these materials were guaranteed to give future problems because they react badly with the limestone. As part of the current major restoration of the Chapel she was tasked with sorting it out a hundred years later.

 

This is the type of material being removed from the old join...

I asked her how she was going to reinsert the antlers. She told me that the head would be glued back together and the antlers would be sunk into a pocket of resin. The new materials will not react with the old so there shouldn't be any more damage caused by rusting metal.

 

The pieces go back together like this...