EXPLAINED: How do you restore 120-year-old sketches by Jersey's stained-glass master?

Friday 27 October 2023

Enormous hand-drawn sketches by a renowned Jersey artist which formed the basis for many of the island's stained glass windows are currently in the process of being meticulously restored... But how is it done? We met the expert...

The "cartoons" - drawings on paper up to 8½ft tall - will be on display alongside the stained-glass windows they served as the base for in a series of exhibitions.

Frederick Benest, the chair of the Glass Rainbow Trust, a charity set up to celebrate the life and work of Bosdet, said: “They [the drawings] were part of the creative process, but they are wonderful works of art in their own right.

“The cartoons are extraordinarily accomplished works of art.”

Pictured: Bosdet stained glass window at St Martin's Church. (Dave Ferguson)

Bosdet had an illustrious artistic and commercial career at the start of the 20th century, designing stained-glass windows around the world including in St Helena and Barbados – as well as designing pieces for a number of island churches.

Step by step: how the artwork is restored...

Lisa Oxenden-Wray, who was brought on by the Glass Rainbow Trust and Jersey Heritage, has spent the past two months restoring the first six cartoons - and there are more to come.

“They’re about 120 years old and they’ve got 120 years’ worth of dirt on them,” Lisa said, adding that they had at some point been stored flat on top of one another. Now, they are in the possession of Jersey Heritage, who keep them rolled-up. This, they say, is the safest way to preserve the art.

Lisa works four to five hours a day using a technique called "dry-cleaning". She removes soot and dirt using a Staedtler Mars eraser. "It almost magically lifts off the dirt," she said.

Other damage, like flicks of paint that might have landed on the paper when Bosdet was working in his studio, will stay. This is the ethical thing to do and gives us a sense of the artist's energy.

Using a textile swab, she then lifts off any residue of dirt and dust and relaxes the paper.

She then turns over the whole artwork to clean its reverse.

Elsewhere on the artwork, there are tears, some of which have become worse over time. Lisa uses Japanese lens tissue to repair those - adding a layer underneath the art, but dissimulating the tear on the surface of the artwork.

Pictured: Annotations on one of the cartoons (Dave Ferguson)

"They are a working drawing," Lisa said, pointing to annotations aimed at the stained-glass window artist.

The goal is for six of the cartoons to be framed and displayed in three island churches. More artwork will be cleaned and restored, but due to storage issues with large framed pieces of art, they will be in the form of facsimiles.

VISIT...

The idea for the exhibitions came from former Jurat Paul Nicolle, a member of the trust, with funding provided by the Jersey Community Foundation. This will be the first time, at least to the Glass Rainbow Trust's knowledge, that they will be on public display.

Lisa added: “For Jersey to have this in their collection is quite something. If we were to display them, we would get more visitors coming to Jersey to see them.”

Pictured: The sketches are the basis of stained-glass windows around the island (Dave Ferguson)

The first of the displays will be held at St Martin’s Parish Church from Tuesday 5 to Sunday 10 December. More exhibitions are planned next year for St Aubin on the Hill and St Mary’s Church.

Pictured - top: Lisa Oxenden-Wray, Helena Kergozou, Peter Tabb and Fred Benest. (Dave Ferguson)