Professional paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/y6zolb82em
CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION WORK. TWO RELIQUARIES FROM THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN IN VARAŽDINSKE TOPLICE
Ada Vrtulek Gerić
orcid.org/0000-0002-9894-7790
; Hrvatski restauratorki Zavod
Abstract
Reliquaries or shrines are containers used for keeping relics and displaying
them for veneration; remains of Christian saints and martyrs or objects linked to
them. Reliquaries Mater Christi and A Spinis Coronatus from the parish church of
St. Martin in Varažinske Toplice originated in the late 18th century and are kept
today in the parish rectory, but until as late as the 1950s were situated at the altar
of St. Martin. These shrines are part of the region’s protected movable cultural heritage
and therefore had to be preserved and restored. The efforts were financed
by the Ministry of Culture and carried out at the Croatian Conservation Institute’s
Ludbreg Conservation Centre. The conservation was rather a complex one, as the
reliquaries are composed of diverse materials, whose distinctiveness needed to
be taken into account, and bore marks of previous injuries and interventions,
which all called for adjustments in the present-day technology of conventional
conservation methods. A complete conservation procedure was undertaken on
both the wooden polychrome and gilded containers and the richly decorated interiors.
Casings were constructed for the shrines from acid-free cardboard with
corresponding fillings and they were returned to the office of the RC parish of St.
Martin in Varaždinske Toplice, where they are currently kept.
Keywords
shrines / reliquaries; protected movable cultural heritage; conservation and restoration methods; storing.
Hrčak ID:
214506
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2018.
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