Valencia (03.04.01). This morning the General Director of Artistic Heritage, Carmina Nácher, opened the exhibition entitled "Restoration of the Vault and Tondi of Segorbe cathedral", organised by the Valencian Community Foundation "The Light of Images". The exhibition examines the whole process of restoring the frescos in the vault and the tondi of the cathedral which has brought their original appearance back to light.

The restoration work was endowed with an investment of 22 million pesetas and is the first exhibition of the set of works that The Light of Images Foundation is preparing for the Segorbe exhibition, to be opened in September this year. The Director of National Heritage stated that the recovery of these frescos is "an example of the work and efforts being made by The Light of Images Foundation to restore the historical artistic heritage of Segorbe".

The restoration team, headed by Fina Martínez started the process of restoring the vault in 1998. The restoration work began with the analyses, samples and readings determining the type of approach to be taken.

These studies indicate that from 1919 a detail of one of the scenes disappeared. The fresco was divided into days' work, as its creator would originally have done, and the process began with the recovery of the drawing of the lost detail.

The tondi of Segorbe cathedral, an original work by José Vergara, had cracks and paint coming off, with a marked aged look. The work consisted in protecting the zones with a risk of cracking, replacing mortars, generally cleaning off dust and smoke stains and chromatic retouching.

Sealing up the cracks with injections of mortar enabled direct action to be taken on the affected surfaces, to proceed to the chromatic retouching process. The general cleaning of accumulated dust and smoke stains has meant the original painting can be seen as sharply as it was originally.