Four Reliquary Busts from the former Monastery of Madre de Deus: Study and Conservation

Abstract

This article describes the conservation and restoration treatments as well as the historical and analytical study carried out on four reliquary busts from the former Monastery of Madre de Deus, in Lisbon, currently the National Azulejo Museum. These reliquaries belong to a collection composed of forty-five reliquary busts, which represent a unique and practically intact set and has dated busts from the late 16th century until late 17th century. The analytical results obtained suggest that the four busts were produced according to the art treatises of the time and the identified materials meet the materials that would be used in that period.