Getting to grips with the rust

The St. Leonhard Chapel in Festenbach is a real gem in the foothills of the Alps.

Now restorers from the State Office for Monument Preservation have taken on a votive plaque from 1622.

Festenbach - The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments pays special attention to the small St. Leonhard church in Festenbach and its furnishings.

Restorers from the State Office have now taken on a votive tablet from 1622 - the condition of the picture had suffered greatly due to the constant moisture.

The experts have carefully restored the tablet over the past few months.

She recently returned to the chapel.

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After the restoration, the motif, the Holy Sorrows, can be seen more clearly again.

© State Office

The votive tablet shows a scene from the life of Saint Sorrow, a bearded woman in a long robe on the cross. The motif is painted in a thin layer of paint directly onto an iron board. "In connection with moisture, rust formed, which penetrated the layer of paint, lifted it off in clods and ultimately blasted it off," says Julia Steinbach, spokeswoman for the state office. The resulting damage was and is clearly visible: large areas of the painting are discolored, the corroded iron was exposed in numerous places. “The focus of the restoration was on strengthening the paint layer,” reports Steinbach. The color of the frame was also cleaned, the resulting gaps were closed in the appropriate color.After the loosened clods of paint had solidified, the restorers finally retouched some areas in the paint layer “to make the motif stand out more clearly”. According to the State Office, the existing discoloration cannot be reversed, but the protective coating that has now been applied is intended to significantly slow down further corrosion of the iron in the future.

St. Leonhard in Festenbach: The last Leonhardi tour took place in 2019

The Chapel of St. Leonhard in Festenbach, the State Office announced, was built around 1649 as the Mariahilf Chapel and expanded in 1799.

It is owned by the shoemaker's farm next door.

Leonhardi rides usually take place every year at the chapel - due to Corona, the last time in November 2019.

"In the Miesbach district there is a large number of chapels and wayside shrines," reports the State Office for Monument Preservation.

But not all are as lavishly equipped as the stately Leonhardi Chapel in Festenbach.

In the past, well-off farmers or craftsmen would have built such places of worship to practice their faith on a daily basis.

"Cultic use and continuous preservation have been a matter of course for generations," says Steinbach.

Today, however, there is a lack of necessary care in many places.

Preserving the votive plaque with the Holy Sorrows was a concern of the restoration workshops of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments.

“It was also the aim to ensure a technically high level of execution in this way,” it says.

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