EN
The paintings that decorate interiors of a parish church at Stegna on a Gdańsk sand-bar were made in ca 1683 on a canvas which was then sized with a glutemglue and nailed direct onto the entire surface (450 square m) of a wooden pseudoarched ceiling of the church. Apart from normal problems encountered in the conservation and restoration of canvas paintings such as a method of disassembling, varnishing, assembling, cleaning, removal of repaintings and a painter’s study, in the case of the conservation of polychromy there appeared additional technical difficulties caused by non-typical features of the painting, to mention only a gluing technique, large surface o f the canvas stretched on a channelled ceiling and hardly removable repaintings. Due to a lapse of time, climatic conditions of the seaside region, damages of the church’s roof and bad technical condition of the building, frequent repairs of the church and consequent temper repaintings of the work, the canvas was badly damaged. After a thorough analysis of the painting and a number of laboratory studies a programme has been worked out for a conservation procedure to include the following operations: preliminary cleaning, varnishing of the facing, protection, disassembling, cleaning and varnishing of the reverse, gluing-in patches, strengthening and reinforcement of the canvas, removal of protections, cleaning of the surface, removal of repaintings, puttying, painting, reconstruction, laying down on the ceiling, retouching after assembling, treatment of ceiling beames and prophylactic use of 0.3 per cent solution of Rashit sodium salt on the surface of the painting. Along with the conservation of the painting, building works were carried out in the church (e.g. the exchange of some beams in a ceiling’s rafter framing). The described treatment, proved correct in practice as well as substances used in the conservation of the painted ceiling at Stegna can be employed in the conservation of other works of art whose technique and condition would pose similiar problems.