The faithful stationed at the stroke of midnight in front of the basilica have become, shortly before five in the morning, a queue of more than a hundred people, which has not stopped growing since then. The Virgin of La Macarena returned to worship this Monday at six in the morning in Seville, to subject the image to a restoration after last June, which disfigured the face of an icon of the city, which transcends the strictly devotional sphere. The expectation and eagerness to see that the 17th century carving has recovered its expression compensates for the hours of waiting and mitigates the cold that passes through the Sevillian dawn.
It was , who last week was in charge of informing the faithful and devotees that his work to recompose the gaze and reverse the alterations caused by the intervention of Professor Francisco Arquillo had concluded. “Each day in front of the image has been an act of deep commitment. I have tried, with the greatest possible sensitivity, to restore its devotional integrity and return that gaze that so many recognize as refuge, consolation and promise. My hands have been guided always taking into account the deep veneration of its devotees and the duty to preserve that which entire generations have guarded with faith,”
“Hope, beautiful!”; “Viva!”. The spontaneous screams of the faithful inside the temple when contemplating the image testify that the intention that has guided Manzano’s work in these almost three months of activity has restored their enthusiasm. The faces at the exit of the basilica, glowing, relieved, have nothing to do with, in many cases, bathed in tears of incomprehension, which appeared on the faces of the devotees who last June when they left the temple, without believing the transformation of the virgin’s face. “He’s back!”, was what they repeated today, relieved, Monday.
The Brotherhood had commissioned Arquillo, professor of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art at the University of Seville and responsible for the restorations of the Macarena since the 1980s, with a “maintenance intervention” that had to be limited to “superficial elements.” But the image that was presented to the cult on June 21 exceeded the limits of a mere intervention. Excessively long eyelashes, which distorted his characteristic tired look, and excessively light polychromy, had completely altered the expression of his face. They only inflamed the indignation of the faithful and brothers. That same Saturday, at noon, they cut her eyelashes and put her back on display to the public. As the spirits did not calm down, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, a young image maker was called who returned part of the reddish patina that surrounds the eyes of the image. It was even worse.
In the following days, the Andalusian Institute of Historical Heritage (IAPH) was commissioned to analyze the state of the carving and. It yielded very worrying conclusions that went beyond Arquillo’s failed intervention. In addition to confirming that the image suffered alterations in the eyelids that modified the original shape of the eyes due to the use of inadequate techniques that altered the original morphology of the image; that changes had also occurred in the hands and tears, the experts denounced the presence of xylophages and a crack that crossed the entire face of the virgin.
Manzano has had to deal with all this damage and deterioration in a process that, unlike the opacity that the Brotherhood maintained during the frenetic 24 hours of June 21 and 22 in which the virgin was intervened on up to three occasions without technical supervision, in which the prestigious restorer has explained all the activity he was carrying out on the carving and which has been supervised by an advisory commission made up of experts. From the treatment to treat anoxia – in which the company Samitech collaborated and which involved the image remaining in a treatment bubble for 24 days with a 0.00% oxygen concentration -, to the chromatic reintegration, through the removal of some forging nails that were affecting a knot in the wood and the eyelashes and tears and the thickness that covered the eyelids, to proceed to the cleaning.
The care that has been observed in this new return to worship has been such that, in the days prior to its final exhibition, the virgin has been placed in places where it can be observed by the faithful – in its traditional dressing room and at the height of the faithful when it is in hand – to recreate the light and refine all the details to the maximum. In these latest tests it was found that “the right eye had a slightly larger opening compared to the photographs before the intervention”, a discrepancy that has been resolved by eliminating a thickening that was carried out in that area of the eyelid.
The Brotherhood, which has just voted for a new Governing Board, does not want to disappoint its faithful again. It seems that this time he has succeeded.
