The Amateurish Restoration of the ʾUmayyād Mosaics

The sensational story of rediscovering the ʾUmayyād Mosaics has been told elsewhere. Thanks to the Louvre Museum and Ms. Loreline Simonis, we've also caught a glimpse of the polemics related to their restoration in the 1960s. To better comprehend the reasons underlying the vehement protestations of Ms. Marguerite Van Berchem vis-à-vis those restorations, it would be best to compare the famous Baradā Panel in the west portico "before" and "after."

Reproducing the immense 34 x 7.3 meter panel in its entirety is impractical for our purposes, so let's instead focus on the following details, photographed in black and white in the late 1920s. The missing portion at the left upper corner is readily identifiable. Let's next examine the color photo from 2010 reflecting the 1965 restoration. The missing left upper corner mosaics had been replaced with new ones marked by the red line. How faithful and successful those repairs turned out to be is debatable. Fortunately, we do have a frame of reference consisting not only of the 300 photographs taken just after exposing the mosaics but also faithful handmade copies of selected parts of those mosaics, respecting size, color, shades, etc.

To illustrate the difference between the original and the restored mosaics, let's now look at one of the copies taken in the aftermath of uncovering the panel. The photo in the middle is of a 330 x 297 cm segment displaying roughly the same scene visible in the photographs before and after the 1965 restoration. The original colors were certainly less gaudy than the drastically altered ones currently at our disposal. 

What's at stake here goes beyond mere aesthetics. The ʾUmayyād Mosque is by far the most important monument of Damascus, one that summarizes the history of the city in its entirety. Those who happen to believe that the restoration is more appealing to the eye than the original might as well decorate newer buildings according to their taste and leave al-Walīd's masterpiece to better-qualified technicians.

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Loreline Simonis. Les relevés des mosaïques de la grande mosquée de Damas. Paris, Louvre éditions /Somogy 2012. 

Fondation Max Van Berchem

Fonds Eustache de Lorey

Paris, Musée du Louvre, photothèque du département des Arts de l'Islam.