Restoration of the Old Royal Naval College Painted Hall: Update

Last year I visited the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Navel College in Greenwich to see the work being done to restore this fading masterpiece. Last week I was in Greenwich visiting the National Maritime and decided to pop in for an update.

At the time of my earlier visit, the conservation work had just started and they are still hard at it (above) a year later but the end is in sight. Much of the surface has been completed and you can clearly see the changes from my photos of the eclipse graphic from last year to this year:

Last year:

This year:

All those pealing paint has been touched up and its definitely looking cleaner though there are still the odd patches that are work in progress.

Some features that had become too faint to be seen were now visible, like this face blasted by the sight of Medusa:

I think the time table is to keep working until the autumn and then there'll be the long exercise of taking down all the scaffolding (apparently it weighs as much as the Space Shuttle) before the whole thing will be revealed in 2019:

Looking forward to seeing it then in all its glory!