RESTORATION OF THE CEILING PAINTING IN THE CENTRAL SALON OF THE FIRST FLOOR OF THE BAJAMONTI-DEŠKOVIĆ PALACE

U tijeku je jedan od najsloženijih zaštitnih zahvata na stropnim oslicima u središnjem salonu prvoga kata palače Bajamonti - Dešković. Skidanje stropnih oslika s izvornog mjesta i njihovo vraćanje nakon provedenih zaštitnih radova postupci su koji iziskuju dobru procjenu, planiranje i organizaciju svih segmenata zaštitnih zahvata, koji su značajni jednako kao i osigurana sredstva za njihovo provođenje.The apartment of late Liljana Dešković née Mikačić on the first floor of the Bajamonti-Dešković Palace at Franje Tuđmana Square at Splitska obala houses painted ceilings with a gross surface of 100 m2. Having bought the property at Šperun at auction, Dr Antonio Bajamonti, mayor of the time, had the Bajamonti palace built in 1858. The first floor of the palace housed his residential apartment whose ceilings were most probably painted by Antonio Zuccaro (1825-1892), a reputable painter from Trieste who worked a lot in Dalmatia. The paintings were assessed to be greatly damaged. In several places the mortar was completely separated from the bearing basis that came off and is falling into many larger and smaller pieces that were, on that occasion, gathered and arranged on the floor of one of the rooms. The ceiling showed in some places large lacunas through which the structure of the bearing part of the paintings was visible. More than 50% of the ceiling was more or less separated from the reed frame fixed onto the beam structure with a tendency of increasing the damage. Some parts of the mortar - painting gradually fell off. In the course of time the painted layer became blurry due to accumulation of dust and soot, partly to pulverization and alteration, while the greatest damages on the painted layer were caused by the water flooding from the upper floors. From the point of view of conservation and restoration, the protection program carried out ranks among the several most complex interventions that an expert can encounter. At the end of 2004 and intensively during 2005 and 2006 research, documentation, consolidation, cleaning and protection of the painting were carried out. Following research results, a study was made envisaging the segmented removal of the painting from its original place, repair and consolidation of mortar and the painted layer. The project of restoring is based on conceiving a new self-supporting construction on which the hanging restored ceiling would be isolated from the static movements of the surrounding walls and would thus enable independent existence within the grid of burdening mechanical forces