St. Stephen’s was a large project* which included restoring several extensive ceiling murals and twelve tondos. Some of the paintings had very big tears and were pulling away from the ceiling. Each was cleaned, repaired, primed and inpainted where necessary to create a seamless visage and to restore their vibrancy.
The job included over a thousand linear feet of intricate stenciling. A three-color stencil was applied to twenty-four ceiling arches while several others had to be repaired and recreated from scratch. Analysis was done to carefully match the original gold-leaf base of some of the stencils, which were then cut and applied by hand.
The scagliola on the fourteen large columns was matched and repaired and the capitals a top each were gold-leafed. The same treatment was applied to the multiple smaller partial columns that line the walls of the church, including some columns for which the scagliola had to be created from scratch.
The stations of the cross and several statues were also cleaned and restored.
*The job was done in conjunction with Baker Liturgical Art, LLC.