The conservation of the canvas has been planned for a long time, but now the ideal time has come, because the year 2017 was announced as the Kościuszko Year. Conservation works will include the dusting of the canvas on both sides and the cleaning of the surface by means of a chemical. The tightness of the canvas will also be improved, and mist lining, putty and spot inpainting will be corrected. In the case of the artificial area, not only dusting will be performed – moving parts will be provided with extra lining and fragments of plants will be replaced. Conservators will reinforce the surface of the artificial area and adjust its configuration slightly. At the end of the works, colour retouching will be performed.
‘The conservation of the artificial area of the Panorama was carried out for the last time in the autumn of 2004. Millions of visitors bring kilograms of dust into the rotunda. The most part of it is intercepted by special filters and cleaning teams, but a small amount settles on the canvas and the artificial area and remains there for years. This is why it is necessary to perform conservation works,’ says Romuald Nowak, the manager of the Racławice Panorama.
The conservation began already on 2nd November. Conservators work in the afternoon and at night. However, from 21st November, they will begin replacing plants in the artificial area. This means that the Panorama will have to be closed to visitors till 5th December. The entire conservation will be completed by 15th December 2016.
The work created by Jan Styka and Wojciech Kossak in the years 1893-1894 commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Kościuszko Uprising; its dimensions are 15×114 metres. The conservation of such facility is a special challenge, so it is handled by an experienced conservation company, which has already conserved, among others, the Racławice Panorama from 1981 to 1985, the Hungarian Feszty Panorama from 1991 to 1995, the American panorama of the Battle of Gettysburg from 2006 to 2008 and carried out the last maintenance works in the Wrocław panorama in 2004.
The Racławice Panorama is the branch of the National Museum in Wrocław. Its conservation was financed from the funds of the Ministry for Culture and National Heritage so that it could enchant visitors in 2017, which was announced as the Kościuszko Year by the UNESCO and the Polish Parliament.
