Although St Jacobs Altar treatment was carried on between 2013 to 2016, conservation of the middle figure was no commenced. That's because of a certain legal issues around of St. Jacobs statue.
Altar was made c.1430, when the east part of church was built. Almost 3 m high masterpiece was created by a local artist. Architecture parts of altar are made of oak and figures are made of lime wood.
The choice of treatment was conservation in situ. After fixing polychromy and filling gaps with B72 / glass microballoons, overpaint was removed. Thanks to Modular Cleaning System task was save and significant painted decoration of Maxentius coat was uncovered.
Deteriorated to a mottled grey smalt overpaint was removed from azurite background.
Below overpaint polychromy was in bad state and a lot of retouches were made. Paraloid B72 with pigments and MS2A with gold powder were chosen.
St. Catherine figure was much better preserved than Madonna, whose carnacy had to be partly reconstructed.
Additionally, Mary's and St. Catherine’s crowns were reconstructed. Elements are based on photodocumentary made before the II World War.
