Art restoration at Paris’ Orsay Museum opened up to the public gaze
Orsay Museum lets visitors watch art restoration, usually done behind closed doors, as experts scrape 50 years of grime off a Courbet work
As they painstakingly scrape grime off a monumental painting by French artist Gustave Courbet, the restorers do a remarkable job of ignoring their unusual surroundings: they are watched by crowds of people, many recording on mobile phones.
Paris’ Orsay Museum has thrown open to the public a process that often happens behind closed doors.
The cleaning and repairs to A Burial at Ornans, one of the museum’s signature works that Courbet painted between 1849 and 1850, are taking place in a bespoke enclosure with windows for visitors to peer through.
“A great idea,” said Jennifer Dasal, a visiting art historian from the US state of North Carolina. “If it’s lasting for a while, people can come back and they can watch the restoration over time.”
