Photo: Courtesy of Old North Church
One of the 16 colonial-era angel paintings being revealed at Old North Church--overpainted and hidden for more than a century.
Through a painstaking and possibly once-in-a-lifetime paint restoration project underway at Old North Church in Boston, a host of colonial-era angels is coming into view, one by one, for the first time in over a century, and just in time for Christmas.
"The revelations thus far have been really amazing," lead conservator Gianfranco Pocobene said during an online talk on Dec. 11 sponsored by Old North Illuminated, the independent nonprofit that oversees the church's historic preservation and visitor education operations. "I've been doing this work for something like 40 years now, and it's one of the most amazing projects I've been involved in," Pocobene said.
The 16 cherubic depictions were painted by Old North Church member John Gibbs, beginning in 1727, and are positioned high up against the nave's barrel-vaulted ceiling, in the arch spandrels above the second-floor galleries.
They are believed to be among the earliest art of their kind that survives from colonial Boston.
Old North's gallery angels, along with accompanying festoons depicting foliage and fruit, were part of an apparently colorful and elaborate original decor that was completely painted over in a 1912 renovation that resulted in the mostly white interior that has prevailed until now.
"There were records that there had been cherubs and festoons that were painted by Gibbs into the 1730s, and there were some early photos that showed shadows of them, back before everything was painted over in 1912, so we knew where to look but we didn't know how detailed they would be or exactly what the full effect [of uncovering them] would be," Laura Lacombe of Building Conservation Associates, Inc., the historic preservation firm overseeing the project, explained in an interview.
The first of the angels was exposed as part of an interior paint study that the firm was hired to do for the church back in 2016 and 2017, Lacombe said, and enthusiasm about it prompted the pursuit of funding to get the current restoration project up and running.
Photo: Courtesy of Old North Church
Restoration project scaffolding that has been up since September will come down in time for Christmas.
"We don't know why the decorative elements that included the angels were covered over--whether it was a restoration of the church to what they thought of at the time as a more colonial appearance, or, as Gianfranco has suggested, that it could also be that they weren't equipped to restore them at the time and so the easier thing was to cover them over--but we do know that from 1727 until 1912, the church was elaborately decorated in various stages," Old North's vicar, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Cadwell, said in an interview.
Records show that Gibbs also decorated an altar panel and the church's original organ case with painted angels, Cadwell said.
"Everywhere you looked in the church, you would have seen angels," he said. "It conveys, I think, a sense of God's presence in our midst, suggesting, to some degree, that you are entering the courts of heaven when you step into the church. It would have been so different from any Puritan church that you would have stepped foot in."
Old North was established in 1723 as Christ Church, Boston's second Anglican parish. It is the city's oldest standing church building and is famous for its role in the start of the American Revolution.
On the night of April 18, 1775, Old North's sexton, Robert Newman, and vestry member Captain John Pulling Jr. shined the "two-if-by-sea" lanterns from the church's steeple as the signal from Paul Revere that the British army was advancing by the Charles River toward Lexington and Concord.
Old North is now a national historic landmark that receives some 500,000 visitors a year. It is also an active Episcopal church.
"In recent years, Old North Illuminated has invested heavily in new research and programming that, collectively, help visitors see Old North Church through an expanded lens. This project, as well, speaks to Old North's history and legacy beyond the famous lantern signal," Nikki Stewart, the executive director of Old North Illuminated, said by e-mail.
The angel restoration project's estimated cost is $465,000, she said. The project has been supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, a program of Mass. Development and the Massachusetts Cultural Council; The Freedom Trail ® Foundation Preservation Fund; and two anonymous funders.
Photo: Courtesy of Old North Church
High atop the scaffolding, conservator Corrine Long works to uncover and restore the decorative angel paintings.
In his online talk, Pocobene said that the most critical and difficult part of the restoration project was to figure out at the start "how do we get the paint off those cherubs and festoons safely and without doing any damage--or minimal damage--because these are 300-year-old objects, and they have suffered already in the past."
After much testing to find the right materials and methods to do the job efficiently but safely, Pocobene and his colleagues have been applying solvent gels to swell and soften the many layers of overpaint, and then soft plastic spatulas and hand-rolled cotton swabs to carefully remove them.
It was at first thought that the angels hidden underneath would be of the same pattern, so the initial plan was to uncover four of them, along with two of the festoons, and then make and install replicas in the remaining overpainted spaces.
The exposure of the second angel changed everything.
"What's fantastic," Cadwell said, "is that we had no idea until Gianfranco started his work that they're all different. They each have different expressions, different hairdos, different wing positions, and they all have a different story to tell in a way."
With that discovery, the decision was made to uncover and restore all 16 of the angels. Once the overpaint is removed, Pocobene and his team apply a protective varnish before touching up any damaged areas. Newly repainted trim visually frames the restored decorative elements.
Photo: Courtesy of Old North Church
Old North's vicar, Matthew Cadwell, reviews progress with lead conservator Gianfranco Pocobene.
Gibbs was aware, Pocobene said, that his angels would be viewed from 30 to 40 feet away, so rather than render them with detailed accuracy, he instead emphasized some features while minimizing others, creating an almost sculptural effect when seen from a distance.
"So really it's about the overall impression, as a group, of these otherworldly beings up high in the church," he said.
Laura Lacombe of Building Conservation Associates noted that Gibbs's method was both sophisticated and thrifty in its way.
"One of the things that I think is so interesting about this time period is there was so much need for beautiful worship spaces, but there wasn't necessarily the craft to go along with it early on, especially if you look at churches in England that these might have been based off of. During that time period, a lot of it was ornately carved stone, and you need massive crews of people who are experienced in that kind of stonework to achieve that. So one of the cheaper ways to give that effect was to make these trompe l'oeil 'carvings' out of paint in the arches," she said.
With the eight angels in the back half of the church now revealed and restored, the scaffolding that's been up since September is coming down this week. It will go back up in the church's front half early in the new year to finish the job on the eight angels that are still hidden from view.
But first, Christmas.
"Half of the angel choir will join us for our Christmas services at Old North this year," Cadwell said with obvious delight, "and the other half in time for Easter."
With the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary lantern signal coming up in Holy Week next year, Cadwell said, it's a fun fact that the gallery angels would have been seen by Paul Revere in his day. "That's interesting to think about, but just as interesting, if not more, is that these angels would have been best seen by the people who sat in the upper galleries, and that would have been the enslaved and free people of color who attended church here and other poor people who couldn't afford the box pews," Cadwell said.
"We can wonder but we can't know what those people in particular thought of the angels above them. We do know that people of color, both enslaved and free, chose to be baptized here, and maintained membership here, were married here, were buried from here, and that the church played a real role in their lives. I would like to think the angels were inspiring and hopeful and gave a sense of love and protection, as angels do."
--Tracy J. Sukraw