The town hall struggles to find the cause of the infiltrations that threaten the decorations of the Saint-Paul church.
“We must act quickly!”, Didier Rykner was alarmed in our columns. It was January 7, 2022. An art historian and journalist, the whistleblower had discovered a few months earlier, with “anger”, the sad state of the precious decorations made in the 19th century in the church of Saint-Paul in Nîmes by Hippolyte Flandrin.
Almost a year later, on site, what has changed? Anything. “It is not a lack of will on the part of the city hall (owner of the venue, ed.), rather, assures cultural assistant Sophie Roulle. Only that we are facing a problem that, for the moment, we cannot solve”. That of water infiltrations that damage the works produced by the prestigious painter. “But we’ve still made progress.”
Where does this water come from?
In the wake of the publication of our dossier in Free lunch, meetings and site visits were organized with the Regional Conservation of Historic Monuments (CRMH), a decentralized service of the Ministry of Culture. Two lines of work have been defined. The second concerns the frescoes themselves: the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts has launched a historical study and an in situ diagnosis is foreseen (general health check, analysis of the materials used). This, in connection with the teams intervened on the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which Flandrin had also decorated (which was very rare). Sophie Roulle went there herself, in Paris.
But before that, the first line of work therefore concerns the construction sector. Around a question: where does this damned fleet come from? “We thought that this could be due to the undersizing of the gutters, which in bad weather would overflow and cause these infiltrations, indicates the chosen one. We fixed it, we did the water tests: it’s not like that”. Water that is all the more difficult to track as it migrates for nearly 24 hours after rains before appearing, according to observations. Council comes to the conclusion that it would be dealing with a concern for the design and not for the maintenance.
A scientific committee
“We will get there, even if the work is important and the budget exceeds what was foreseen”promises Sophie Roulle. For the moment, €20,000 has been requested in the forecast budget for 2023 for the studies of the paintings and €30,000 for “urgent resets”.
Discussions with the CRMH, which is providing support for this dossier, have made it possible to draw up a list of possible restorers and possible participants in a scientific committee currently being set up. It should meet in the coming months. “We really hope that the poor building conditions will resume in 2023 and then the operations on the paintings will start quickly,” continues the chosen one. Paintings that continue to deteriorate.
In Nîmes, an invaluable testimony
works Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864), Prix de Rome in 1832, was Ingres’ favorite pupil. He is one of the major painters of the 19th century, particularly recognized for his religious subjects. In addition to Saint-Paul, he only decorated in Paris the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (associated with Denuelle for the ornamental parts, such as in Nîmes), Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and some chapels. In Saint-Paul, Flandrin left 56 figures in all; priceless testimony. The capital: a colossal Christ surrounded by Saints Peter and Paul on a gold background in the dome of the great apse. It is in excellent condition, as are the figures (Mary, evangelists, archangels) above the high altar. The paintings on the walls on the sides of the choir are affected, in particular the figures of angels badly damaged by humidity. The large friezes are under threat.
