Grand Master’s Palace restoration reveals rare French period paintings

Restoration of a balcony at the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta has uncovered several decorations dating back to the French rule in Malta.

“These decorations are now known to be similar to those discovered in three halls which were recently opened to the public,” Heritage Malta said on Thursday. The restoration of the large covered balcony was finished just a week ago. It offers a view of Archbishop Street and serves as a walkway linking the Four Continents Room, the French Room, and the Room of the Order of St Michael and St George. 

These were among the nine halls opened to the public for the first time last June, following extensive restoration of decorated wooden ceilings, frescoes, marble, and flagstone floors.

Some of these halls formed part of the Grand Master's summer apartment, and it is believed that the location of the discovered decorations may have been used by officers of the Order or as a library.

(Photo: Heritage Malta)

The painting decorations were discovered beneath several layers of paint, likely concealed when the halls and balcony were whitewashed during the early British period. 

Paintings from the French period in Malta are rare. At the time, French Republican emblems were painted in local parish churches, but today only one survives, kept at the Mdina Cathedral Museum.

Historical researcher Judge Giovanni Bonello notes that in December 1798, payments were made to a Maltese artist for decorations in the Palais National, as the Palace was known under the French.

Later, in 1888, Blanche Simmons, the daughter of Governor Lintorn Simmons, described the Palace interior, writing of mythological scenes decorating the soffit of what is now the French Room.

During recent works, restorers found traces of these scenes, including playful vignettes of putti. One shows a putto painting while seated on a lectern under the gaze of another. These could not be uncovered because the paint used to cover them had a binding medium too strong to remove without damage.

Samples have been taken to Heritage Malta’s diagnostic science labs, where experts will look for a safe method to expose the paintings in the future.