The Department of Conservation and Built Heritage at the University of Malta is launching the final stage of the conservation of the wall paintings of the Chapel of Palazzo de la Salle in Valletta.
The crowdfunding campaign to help complete the project is now live. Donate today!
The little-know Chapel within the Palazzo is decorated with stunning 1730s wall paintings depicting the Coats of Arms of Fra Guillaume de la Salle, the eponymous resident of the Palazzo, Grandmaster Manoel de Vilhena, and scenes from the Life of St John. These paintings are highly significant as some of the few Baroque wall paintings in Malta to survive within a domestic context, but they are virtually unknown to scholars and the public alike, since the Chapel has been closed to the public since the early 20th century.
The Department has been carrying out the study and conservation of the Chapel since 2016, as a core component of the training of emerging professional conservators studying on its Master of Science programme in the Conservation of Decorative Architectural Surfaces. After the hard team work carried out in 2016-2018, the final phase of the project will include the cleaning and retouching of the paintings, and is therefore a crucial stage of the work, since it will return full legibility and aesthetic value to the paintings, after hundreds years of obscurity. This will require 6 months of full-time work of two recent professional graduates, after which the paintings will be presented to the public.