F. Mentényi Klára szerk.: Műemlékvédelmi Szemle 1999/1-2. szám Az Országos Műemléki Felügyelőség tájékoztatója (Budapest, 1999)
MŰHELY - Velledits Lajos: A novai Mária Mennybemenetele plébániatemplom Angyali üdvözletet ábrázoló boltozati mezejének restaurálása
work and the later amendment. The third restoration took place in 1969-70 (Anna Bujdosó and Gábor Döbrentei lead by József Prudzik). It can be presumed that the restorers could not or did not want to differentiate between the original fresco and the later completion. According to their opinion there was an original layer of the fresco but it could not be found, and they could build their completions on preserved drawings. The reason was perhaps to make to seem less catastrophic the fresco's condition. At the beginning of the present restoration it was sure that no original layer existed on the surface of the fresco. On the basis of the palm-size 18 th century fragments the technique of Dorffmaister could be concluded. He began painting in a plastered interior and the architectural painting had already been finished by that time he started work. On other parts it was visible that on the surface of the finished architectural painting a very thin layer of plaster was put and the figures were painted on this. As a result of the investigation it became clear that original surfaces were less than 5% of the whole, and Dorffmaister's composition was extinct. The scene of the Annunciation did not have a later completion which should be preserved, so only original fragments were conserved. The surface of the vaulting should be cleared from everything to make a lasting plaster as a base for reconstruction. When plastering wet material was put on top of wet, differently from the practice of 18 lh century masons. The holes in the plaster were filled in with the help of a special ceramic net widespread in Germany and Austria. The repainting of the figures and architectural parts was possible with the use of a drawing reduced then in size and corrected. The old photographs were the greatest helps of the work, but other decorations of the church were also taken into consideration. When forming the cassettes the works of Palladio were followed. Only those paints were used which were known in the 18 th century. The binding material was casein mixed of cottage cheese and lime. When reconstructing architectural painting we tried to follow as much as possible the practice of baroque and the Dorffmaister workshop. At the reconstruction of the compositions no didactic differentiation was made, the 15 figures of the first photograph got back to their places, although their number was reduced to 11 during the following restoration. The most difficult task was the forming of the Virgin's figure and we could use only analogies. As a starting point the early Annunciation compositions of Dorffmaister could be taken into consideration, mainly the altarpieces of Kiskomárom and Tűrje. The hand's model was Paul Troger's Annunciation in Győr. The architectural elements were reconstructed after the first photograph as all the other figures of the composition. Restoration begun on 17 th October, 1997 and was finished by 23 rd December 1998. It has to be stressed that it is much better to restore a relatively unharmed fresco, but we were led by the purpose to restore and show the wall paintings representing the ideas of János Szily and transmit their meaning to the community of the village and visitors as well.
