One of the Liebieghaus’s treasures is found behind the scenes of the modernized exhibition galleries: a former guest room, the “farmhouse parlour”, originally decorated in the Gothic and Renaissance style.
Today Harald Theiss is in charge of restoring the museum’s sculptures – and now he has also brought the hidden history of the parlour back to light. It shines in new old splendour: in the conservation workshop, the modern work appliances stand side by side with historical furnishings, the original wooden panelling has been exposed, and the original colours and embellishments intuitively reconstructed. In the background is Theiss’s desk. For the conservator, the measures to restore the room were a project close to his heart.
More than a hundred years ago, the “farmhouse parlour” was decorated in the style of the Southern German and Tyrolean Gothic and Renaissance. Whoever would have thought back then that one day sculptures would be restored here?
The former chapel niche now houses the chemistry lab. The original colour scheme of the vault has been revived with artificial ultramarine; the forms of the stars had to be freely reconstructed.
In the newly fashioned cupboard niche, the collection of precious historical pigments once again has a worthy storage space.