The Aldersgate Flame
Aldersgate Flame Disfigured by Corrosion

The Aldersgate Flame whose legibility and purpose had been lost

The Antique Bronze team recently undertook monument restoration work on The Aldersgate Flame.  This is a special bronze located outside the entrance to the Museum of London. It is reputed to be the approximate location of John Wesley’s evangelical conversion in 1738. The English cleric and theologian went on to be one of the founding fathers of Methodism. He inspired its followers to right wrongs of the day, particularly with regard to social issues, such as prison reform and the abolition of slavery.

The mighty sculptural scroll features text from Wesley’s journal describing his conversion experience. Over time, the environment had done its worst and the monument’s surface had corroded quite comprehensively. Only small patches of patina were left intact.

In a situation like this monument restoration is the only way to proceed.

Aldersgate Flame Disfigured by Corrosion

Text was disfigured by corrosion

As the design of the sculpture centres around its text, visitors looked confused when guided there. They could no longer understand the statement that was intended to engage the public or appreciate its value because of the poor legibility and disfiguration of the surface.   This is where champion of the monument, Alison Gowman, came to its rescue. She found funds to restore the monument.

Monument Restoration and Conservation Ethics

When a bronze surface is highly disfigured, a conservator has very few options open to them. Repatination involves the recolouring of a bronze’s surface by hand. The method employs almost identical methods to how a foundry would have finished the bronze when it was first made. This was a method that in previous eras was used so often that it was barely questioned.  Today,  we try to avoid treatments that do away with the passage of time in order to balance the original finish with acknowledgement of the object’s history.

Repatination, though, should make conservators pause. It goes against several principles that we try to uphold such as the desirability of techniques to be reversible and minimal intervention whenever possible.

Though technology has stormed ahead in the last decade, the repertoire of restoration technique suitable for large bronzes remains in the dark ages. Monuments which are hammered with rain, baked in the full sun and blown about by fierce urban winds often need repatination work in order to restore them to usefulness.  So in this particular case, legibility trumps reversibility.

We were fortunate to have some segments of patina that were not ruined. This meant we were able to coax the new colour into existence and blend it with the segments that were already intact.

The Aldersgate Flame after repatination

Text on the scroll after some repatination work

All Is Well Now

All is well now for The Aldersgate Flame and it is being enjoyed again by its visitors.  Recently, Wesley Day was celebrated and the monument received a great deal of praise. Repatination should not necessarily be a technique conservators are fearful of using.  Considered carefully and used sparingly, it continues to be a necessary technique in the preservation of outdoor sculpture.

The Aldersgate Flame after Restoration

The Aldersgate Flame after Restoration

Bronze Sculpture Restoration: The Challenging Restoration of Field Marshall Smuts, Parliament Square

Bronze statue restoration, Field Marshall Smuts

The statue of Field Marshall Smuts was unveiled in Parliament Square on the 7th November 1956. Sculpted by one of the nation’s favourite artists, Jacob Epstein, and cast by Art Bronze Foundry (London) Ltd, this monument is another fine example of British foundry skills.

To the casual visitor, the statue’s black surface didn’t look out of place among a sea of other statesmen of varying shades of bronze on Parliament Square, but to a bronze conservator, the deep black surface was our first piece of evidence that something was amiss.

True black patinas on monuments of that period and earlier are very rare. Black waxing, or boot-polishing statues, however, was a common method used to ‘tidy-up’ sculptures that had been looking poor for decades. It was a cheap way of covering over disfigured surfaces and corrosion.

This Bronze Sculpture’s Restoration Sstarted With Assessing The Black Surface.

The black layer on Marshall Smuts lifted easily suggesting that, indeed, the coating was not a patinated finish, which a foundry would have applied. This coating was obscuring a lower layer which had evidence of a patchy green patina.

During initial cleaning tests, we discovered that the identical shade of green was found quite universally over the body. Although it can be difficult on bronzes to differentiate between a naturally forming green patina and an artificially patinated shade, it is very uncommon to find a naturally forming green patina being a standard shade across a surface. This is because the corrosion will have formed very specifically according to the pollutants on that area of the bronze, the shape of the surface, prevailing winds along with many other factors. To have the same circumstances at a variety of points across an outdoor sculpture would be highly unusual. The evidence pointed to the original patina being green.

Historic Research During A Bronze Sculpture’s Restoration is Essential

Consulting historic imagery was frustrating. There were many images of the statue being unveiled and even video footage, but alas, all were in black and white. However, it was possible to discern that the statue appeared to be very pale in colour completely opposite to the existing black shade and the other dark bronzes in Parliament Square.

We discovered a passage in Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster Vol. 1 (Ward-Jackson, 2011, pp 206-208) stating that at the time of the unveiling The Times reporter found the viridian green patina ‘unexpectedly vivid’ and hoped that time and the London atmosphere would ‘soften the tone and also the glossiness of the finish. ’ Other newspaper reports described it as “bright green” and “startling green”. 

These were the first items of textual evidence that we found confirming that the sculpture’s original shade was not black, but green. This was followed up with discussions with the Art Bronze Foundry who are still in existence and within the same family’s hands; consultation with Westminster Archives & Local Studies Officer and watching BBC commentary of the unveiling by Richard Dimbleby.  We also corresponded with The South African Legion, who contacted some of those who had attended the initial unveiling for eyewitness reports. These pieces brought together a solid picture of the original finish.

With further study of the physical green fragments dotted across the surface, and the statue’s overall condition, some conservation decisions had to be made. Treatment was absolutely essential to slow the degradation of the sculpture which had become quite acute. The existing black coating had failed in large segments and it was clear that activity was taking place beneath at the detriment of the metal’s surface. It was felt to be of paramount importance to recognise Jacob Epstein’s original intent for the sculpture, which was very different to the current aesthetic.

Conclusions

It is unknown why the statue was given a pigmented black coating during its past. It is not the first outdoor sculpture to have had such a treatment when it began to look poor and it could well have been a decision made in ignorance of the artist’s intended finish.

The conclusion was made to return Field Marshall Smuts to as close a resemblance to his original finish as possible. During the works, he was cleaned, corrosion stabilised, and re-patination was undertaken to match the existing patina fragments. He now stands proudly, keeping a military watch over the Square as he would have done 61 years ago.

We have other interesting articles on challenging bronze sculpture restoration projects if you are keen to read more,  the work we did on The Aldersgate Flame, might interest you. 

If you’d like to know more about statue restoration, take a look at our online course