More Angels in Old North Church

Old North Church in the North End has announced another eye-opening part of its project to preserve and restore parts of its interior to how it looked in the eighteenth century.

The building, more formally Christ Church, was one of Boston’s Anglican places of worship. Its minister and parishioners didn’t inherit Puritan attitudes toward decoration. The Colonial Revival archetype of the colonial New England meetinghouse as plain and white didn’t really apply.

The church explains:

For much of its history, the church boasted a rich color scheme with ornate and intricate designs. A highlight of Old North’s early decor was artwork from John Gibbs, an accomplished painter and congregation member. Between 1727 and the 1730s, Gibbs painted a series of beautiful angels in the balcony arches of the sanctuary. Gibb’s stunning artwork was covered over with white paint during a 1912 renovation and has been hidden for more than a century…until now.

We are thrilled to share that a 6-month restoration project is now underway to uncover the angels that Gibbs painted in the 18th century. An initial paint study in 2017 partially restored one of Gibbs’s angels, and now expert craftspeople are painstakingly removing layers of paint to reveal the rest of the angel and four additional angels. Later, a talented artist will paint replica angels on removable veneers to adorn the rest of the arches, giving us a glimpse of the sanctuary as Paul Revere would have seen it as a young bellringer.

This fall, visitors to Old North Church will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch long-hidden history being revealed. This sort of paint restoration is rare in the United States; you would typically have to go to Europe to see a similar project. We invite you to visit us throughout October and November and watch the conservation team in action.

Lead conservator Gianfranco Pocobene took the photo above this month, stating, “I am using different solvent gel and free solvent combinations from what the original team used in 2017, and so far I’m very pleased that I’m able to completely remove the overpaint without damaging the original paint surface.”

In other art restoration news, the Lexington Historical Society has received a grant from the Wyeth Foundation of American Art to support the conservation and reinterpretation of Emanuel Leutze’s “The News of Lexington.” The German artist painted that canvas in 1852, one year after he created his iconic image of Gen. George Washington crossing the Delaware.