The restoration of the largest altarpiece in the Canaries

Restoration “This is a meticulous and exquisite job that the team led by restorer Candelaria Gil has carried out, allowing La Laguna in particular, and the island in general, to reclaim a work from the early 18th century of incalculable value.”

For his part, the island director of Territorial Planning and Historical Heritage of the Cabildo of Tenerife expressed the significance of this action, carried out on what is the largest altarpiece in the Canary Islands and which is also linked to the Cultural Asset of Interest classified as a monument of the Cathedral of San Cristóbal de La Laguna.

The restorer Candelaria Gil explained how the process for recovering the work, created by the Laguna artist Antonio Francisco de Orta in 1715, was carried out, representing aspects of Baroque and Rococo styles.

She assured that its deterioration was due to changes in location, inadequate conservation and restoration processes prior to the current one, and the works that were carried out in the Laguna Cathedral between 2002 and 2014. Gil acknowledged that this restoration has been the “most important challenge I have faced in my extensive career,” and that the primary objective was to “preserve the original work to the maximum, attempting to maintain its functional, artistic, aesthetic, and historical values”; thus, a prior physical-chemical analysis was conducted, in addition to a photographic study.

Subsequently, a meticulous reconstruction process of the most damaged pieces was carried out, as well as strengthening their structure and cleaning them, concluding with the phase of polychromy and gilding, in order to finish the work keeping it as similar as possible to the original piece.