The last one was heavy enough but this one is a two-man lift.
I work alone here, so I'll have to ask a neighbour to help me lift it on to the bench.
I could ask my wife but then we wouldn't be speaking to each other for the rest of the day.
It's a 19th century Louis X111 style baroque acanthus and flower frame.
There's a lot of small losses to be repaired and the whole is covered in a rather grimy finish. I'll try cleaning this away with some Vulpex.
Looking up close you can see the extraordinary attention to detail which they took. The castings of the acanthus leaves are rolled back at the tips, then gilded with burnished gold so as to give the decoration a hard metallic appearance.
But then on the outer gilded walls, some idiot has gone around with a wet cloth and rubbed the gold back down to the underlying bole.
Depending how it cleans up, I might just keep that and accept it as part of the history.
