Walter Finch
A SPANISH mother and daughter have teamed up to pioneer a new art restoration technique using specially trained glue-eating bacteria.
The project involves 75-year-old Pilar Roig, an art restorer, and her 42-year-old microbiologist daughter, Pilar Bosch.
Together, they have combined their unique skill sets to save historic artworks in Valencia’s Santos Juanes Church, one of Spain’s oldest churches as part of a €4 million project.
For many years, Roig had been struggling to restore and preserve 18th-century paintings by Antonio Palomino.
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Previous restorers in the 1960s had used a glue that was difficult to remove with traditional methods involving hot water and sponges, which were not only painstakingly slow but risked damaging the artwork.
The solution to Roig’s problem took root in 2008 when Bosch was researching her doctoral thesis and stumbled upon an article about bacteria being used to clean frescoes in Italy.
Bosch’s research led her to a breakthrough – by ‘training’ bacteria to feed on the glue made from animal collagen, they found they could naturally produce enzymes to break it down.
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The bacteria were then mixed with a natural algae-based gel and applied to the frescoes. Within just three hours, the glue dissolved, leaving the artwork pristine.
This pioneering mother-daughter collaboration is now funded by local foundations, and their bacterial techniques have been applied to other high-profile restoration sites, including Pisa and Montecassino in Italy, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Art conservation runs deep in the family. Roig’s father, grandfather, and other relatives were also restorers.
Bosch is now looking ahead, training new bacterial strains to tackle graffiti on spray-painted walls, expanding the technique beyond traditional art restoration.
This groundbreaking fusion of science and art is not only preserving Spain’s cultural heritage but also passing the baton from one generation to the next.
