Conservation of Frescoes and Icons
The Ephorate’s Frescoes and Icons Conservation Laboratory is fully equipped and staffed by professional conservators and visual artists, who are active both in the monuments of Chalkidiki and Mount Athos, as well as in the Ephorate’s facilities. The staff is responsible for preparing studies, documenting, preserving and restoring paintings (frescoes, portable icons, more recent canvases, etc.).
Mount Athos is one of the biggest in size and most important in historical and artistic value heartlands of Byzantine, post-Byzantine and contemporary art. From the beginning of its establishment, in 1973, to this day, our Ephorate has carried out dozens of emergency preventive interventions on the mural decoration of the katholikons of the monasteries and their chapels, in order to prevent deterioration attributable to various causes (humidity, deposits of foreign matter, etc.). Respectively, the Ephorate has prepared conservation studies and has carried out conservation work on dozens of mural ensembles, the most important of which are: the katholikon and the refectory of the Megisti Lavra Monastery, the chapel of St. John the Theologian at the cell of St. Procopius of the Vatopedi monastery, the katholikon of the Docheiariou monastery, the chapel of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Zographou monastery, etc. However, the most iconic monument-landmark of Byzantine art on Mount Athos is the mural decoration of the Protaton church in Karyes, where conservation works lasted from 2007 to 2014 with interruptions and the names of the two painters, Michael Astrapas and Eutychios were made known to us [I. Tavlakis (ed.), The Holy Church of the Protaton, 2007-2008, vol. I, Imprint Drawings, Polygyros 2008 and I. Kanonidis (ed.), Protaton II. Conservation of the Wall Paintings, vol. I-II, Polygyros 2015]. Besides, the conservation of many portable icons, either recorded in international literature or unpublished, was carried out by the Ephorate’s Frescoes and Icons Conservation Laboratory in the context of the Ephorate’s presence in many monasteries on Mount Athos. Some, in fact, were presented in major exhibitions such as the “Treasures of Mount Athos”, which was hosted at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki when Thessaloniki was selected as the European Capital of Culture in 1997, and the exhibition “Le Mont Athos et l’Empire byzantin. Trésors de la Sainte Montagne” in 2009, hosted at the Petit Palais, in Paris.
In Chalkidiki, the Laboratory coordinates its activities after prioritizing the needs of the wealth of monuments in the two regional Metropolises. Our interest is focused on the few mural ensembles of St. Athanasius in Fourka, Panagia Faneromeni in Scione, Panagouda in Calandra etc., and of course on the numerous portable icons, which are transferred to the facilities of the Ephorate for disinsectization and conservation. In that context, a noteworthy step is the study and conservation of a set of portable icons that resulted from the synergy of our Ephorate with the “Ormylia” Art Diagnosis Center. It concerns the documentation and the conservation of fifteen icons dating from the 14th to the 19th century by use of diagnostic techniques, a project mentioned in the bilingual edition The Hidden Beauty of Icons, Dekozis-Vouros Foundation, Indiktos, Athens 2004.
