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| NAZARENO OF QUIAPO, AFTER ITS RESTORATION. |
Since I retired, I have gone easy on buying old,
slightly-flawed santos for restoration. I can sense that my santo-mania have subsided a bit, which is
good, but not my compulsion for taking on santo projects. I know a good
challenge when I see one.
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| THE VINTAGE NAZARENO, AS FOUND. |
Take this dismembered Nazareno for instance, depicting the Black Nazarene of Quiapo.. I had
gone to a neighborhood garage sale where I bought an antique filing cabinet. As I was
talking to the homeowner, I noticed he was holding a plastic bag that contain some
wooden santo body parts.
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| ALL WRAPPED UP FOR THE TRASH, |
I knew it was a vintage Nazareno, the types that were commercially sold, perhaps, in front of churches back in the 1950s and 60s. When I asked to take a look,
he said, “Oh, this is a santo that came from an altar that I already sold. It’s been broken in
pieces, damaged beyond repair, so that’s why I am throwing it out,”.
“Can I have it?”, I asked. “I’ll save you a trip to the
garbage dump”.
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| NAZARENO PARTS, cleaned and sorted. |
So not only did I take the cabinet home, but also a
dis-assembled naked, wigless Nazareno without a base and feet. The torso had
separated from the rest of his body, and the cross, just like the figure’s
fingers, was broken. The head had miraculously survived, made of escayola, typical
of mass-produced midcentury Nazarenos. Likewise, the Nazareno’s tin potencias and
crown of thorns were intact.
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| NAZARENO PARTS, glued and assembled. |
When I finally had the chance to clean and assemble the
pieces, I was surprised that about 90% of the figure were still there, albeit in horrible
condition. I knew this Nazareno can be salvaged, but I don’t think I can do it
alone, so I took it to the nearby House of Saints, whose manager, Mr. Regie
Honrada is a formidable collector of images himself.
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| RECONSTRUCTED HEAD, BODY & CROSS |
I think only he could understand why on earth I would want
to restore a santo with that seemingly-hopeless condition. So, he agreed to do a
sympathetic restoration of the piece to retain its integrity as an antique.
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| STAGING THE RECONSTRUCTED SANTO |
When I came back for it after a month, Regie had added the
Nazareno’s missing feet, carved a new left arm as the damaged part was beyond repair.
The head and its features had also been repainted and reglued to the body. The Nazareno now rests on a plain solid wooden base, stained and varnished.
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| SALVAGED VESTMENTS, used in restoration. |
The most wonderful part was that, Regie did not charge me a
centavo for the work he did, he was just glad to help. As for Jesus’s
vestments, I brought along some old, embroidered santo robes that I saved from
my other restoration projects.
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| IN YELLOW VESTMENTS, later re-dyed, |
Unfortunately, the robe and the cape were of faded yellow
satin, once worn by an ivory santo. When vestment-maker Paul Candaza attempted
to dress the Nazareno using them, they actually fit, but the color was really not
appropriate.
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| OLD SANTO ABACA WIG, recurled. |
So what I did was to dye the robe maroon red, using good old
fashion “jobus” powder. I did the same for a small abaca wig, dying it black
and re-curling it using toothpick as rollers. I did away with the cape and after vesting the
image and making minor adjustments, the result was this—
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| Before & After PHOTOS, NAZARENO RESTORATION |
I thought this unusual Nazareno restoration project was
quite a success. From a santo destined for the trash, it has now become a treasure, fit to
grace any altar of any home.
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| NAZARENO, with re-dyed maroon vestments. |
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| NAZARENO, in re-dyed maroon vetsment. |
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| NTRO. PADRE JESUS NAZARENO, restored |
MANY THANKS TO: Mr. Reggie Honrada of House of Saints, Mr. Paul Candaza
