2021 – Altarpiece of the life of saint Walhère

Preliminary study for the conservation of the Altarpiece of the life of saint Walhère from the Bon-Air Chapel in Onhaye
To this day, the Onhaye altarpiece remains the only testimony to the polychromy of altarpieces produced in the Principality of Liège in the second half of the 16th century, since the polychromy of all other altarpieces belonging to the same group has been stripped. The altarpiece’s very precarious state of conservation required an emergency treatment of the work. An exhaustive material study should now make it possible to recommend a conservation-restoration treatment that will bring out the artistic qualities of this altarpiece, currently disfigured by a crude polychromy.

 

Overall view of the altarpiece