Guidelines for Conservation and Restoration of Historic Polychrome Plasterwork: the Church of St María la Blanca in Seville, Spain

Abstract

Carrying out an intervention for the conservation and restoration of architectural heritage, focused on the preservation of decorative elements such as polychromed plasterwork, implies following a methodology to study the materials and techniques used in each case to establish an intervention proposal according to the circumstances. This work offers some methodological guidelines necessary to approach the conservation of plasterwork and its polychromies, applied in a recent case study according to the criteria established by the 14th General Assembly of ICOMOS in 2003, the Law 14/2007 of Andalusian Historical Heritage, the Law 16/1985 of the Spanish Historical Heritage, and indications contained in the ECCO Guidelines. The novelty of the paper is that it presents the conservation decisions on a real case from the beginning until the end — showing the entire process and validating the proposed methodology — by using current restoration techniques and digital tools for the reconstruction of plasterwork.