Quito threw itself fully into the restoration of the immense monument that stands in its central capital square to commemorate the bicentennial of Ecuador’s Independence, which will be celebrated on May 24.
Climbing on scaffolding, restorers from the Metropolitan Institute of Heritage (IMP) of Ecuador clean and polish a huge wounded lion located at the base and the bronze lady carrying a torch, known simply as “La Liberta”, which crowns this monument 17 meters high.
Located in the heart of Quito’s Plaza de la Independencia -a city declared a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO-, the structure is surrounded by important buildings: the Presidential Palace of Carondelet, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Archbishop’s Palace and the headquarters of the capital’s mayor’s office.
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“For everyone from below (the sculpture of “La Liberta”) it looks small, but above you see the perfection in the details. The sculptural proportion is impressive”, tells AFP the restorer and museologist Polet Barragán, who works on the work.
Experts are also restoring the marble on which the monument rests, which was built by architect Lorenzo Durini with the collaboration of Italian artists between 1903 and 1906, according to the IMP.
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Since they began their work, on April 12, The technicians reported missing pieces, including a bayonet and the arrow that pierced the lion that roars at the base of the monument.
A circulating version refines the hypothesis that “a person who had mental problems could not bear to see the lion suffering and decided to remove the arrow,” said Barragán.
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Although it is on top, the technicians found a deformation in the dress of the sculpture of the woman who carries the torch and they suppose that this occurred during the regime of General Guillermo Rodríguez Lara (1972-1976).
“It seems that there were clashes in which La Liberta received an impact that deformed part of the folds of the sculpture’s dress”added the restaurateur.
The monument, also adorned by a condor, an Andean bird embodied in the Ecuadorian national coat of arms, was inaugurated on August 10, 1906, during the second presidency of military man and liberal revolutionary Eloy Alfaro (1906-1911).
The last comprehensive intervention carried out on the monument dates back to the 1990s. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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