Stefania d’Alba is leading the conservation team restoring the 18th-century ceiling murals designed by James Thornhill in the Painted Hall of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London. During the project, visitors have been able to see the artwork up close from the top of the scaffolding, which finally comes down later this month.

As an Italian, do you think the description of the hall as Britain’s Sistine Chapel an accurate one?
I was certainly overwhelmed when I saw the scale of the paintings for the first time. They feature different styles and techniques, but the Painted Hall is beautifully done. There are more than 300 people depicted – I particularly like the animals with human expressions. It’s like they want to speak to me when I am up there with them.
 
How are the working conditions?

We have varied the treatments we do each day because standing there cleaning all that time would have turned us into bodybuilders. I used to have a problem with my knee but it’s a lot better as the muscles have improved. The scaffold is largely covered but there are one or two positions where we can see the door to the vestibule, and it’s scary so high up when the people down below look so small.

How does it differ from other conservation projects?
The team comes from different conservation backgrounds, so we share experiences and methodologies, alongside talking to visitors mounting the scaffolding on the ceiling tours. It’s a lot different from working alone on a painting in the studio. We are logging all our work in a database with before and after pictures, so future conservators will know what we did. This will provide much more information than we have about the hall’s last conservation 60 years ago.

Did you run out of things to conserve in Italy?
Not exactly. When I finished my degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, it wasn’t a good time in Italy, economically or politically. I decided to move to the UK for a while to improve my English. That “while” is now six years, as I started work on the conservation of the 19th-century McEwan Hall at the University of Edinburgh, which took three years.

Would it be safe to assume your home is a riot of elaborate ornamentation and colour schemes?
At work, I’m up in the air but I live in a basement flat, so I go below ground at the end of the day. My partner loves collecting stuff from charity shops so there’s a lot of vintage stuff like an old gramophone and a rotary dial phone. I’m always surrounded by history.