In the early 1950s, entertainer Bob Hope purchased a large hand-carved Nativity set from an artisan company in northern Italy as a gift for his wife, Dolores, who was raised Catholic. For decades, it was displayed at the couple’s Toluca Lake home.
Following her death in 2011, the set was offered to their local parish, St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood. Not likely having the storage capacity to hold 17 statues measuring up to 5 feet tall, they were instead given to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles in 2013, where they have been displayed annually during the Advent and Christmas season.
Age, wear, and tear on the statues convinced cathedral staff it was time for a restoration. They turned to Sheila Lehman, the artist and restorer at La Porte Vintage, a workshop she opened about a dozen years ago in Arcadia. While the shop specializes in restoring vintage furnishings and other items, Lehman has been asked to work on religious statues over the years.
“I had helped out with some restoration work at my church, St. Bede in La Cañada Flintridge,” Lehman said. “Then one day the pastor came to me with a 100-year-old, 4-foot-tall wooden statue of Mary and Baby Jesus. It was in a very bad state. Dry rot and more.”
Lehman has plenty of experience restoring large statues, like a St. Agatha replica from its namesake parish in Los Angeles, and six statues for Holy Angels Church in Arcadia, among others. But the Nativity project is by far her biggest.
“We picked up five pieces at the end of January, and I set aside all my time for the next few months,” Lehman said, adding that one of the first pieces she received, King Balthazar, was perhaps the most damaged of them all.
“Over the 70 years or so, the statues were sun and water-damaged and faded. They were varnished repeatedly too, so that they were more brownish than colored, covering the original beautiful detail. Repairs had also been made to accidental chips, cracks, broken fingers and even hands, and those need to be addressed.”
Over time, the wood naturally split and separated, so she had to stabilize them by removing and replacing the rotted or missing material, and then carefully gluing everything back together. She searched the internet to find the right era of linden wood for repairs, and to obtain the same glue they would have used at the time.
“Provenance was important for this,” Lehman said, with a contact at the Demetz Art Studio in Italy suggesting the Nativity set may have been a one-of-a-kind, custom order. “They searched their photo archives and could not find a match to their own historical pieces, which means I had to do my own research.”
Wood aside, Lehman uses other specialized techniques to meticulously clean, sand, repair, and paint her various projects. A glimpse around her workshop reveals not only paints, brushes, glues, catalogues, and reference books, but vintage dental tools and a series of large “mood boards” where she notes the details of each piece, the mixes of paints used to create the correct color for repainting, and more.
“The painting is the part I love the most,” she said as she worked on the statue of King Gaspar, whose red robe she noticed seemed to have some elaborate patterns — and more gold paint — as part of the original design.
She explained the work required for the other pieces — a donkey, cow, camel, and others — and noted that the angel statue was missing from the collection that came to the cathedral. She thinks it may have been so badly broken over the decades that it was discarded.
Advent begins on Nov. 29 and Lehman admits that she could be working right up to her self-imposed deadline of Nov. 1 to get everything done, even as some statues haven’t been examined yet.
Lehman is hoping this high-profile project will raise awareness of the impact such work can have at places of worship across California. To that end, she established a division of La Porte Vintage, SaveLAStatues.org, which focuses specifically on religious statue restorations.
“Churches might unknowingly possess high-quality European historical statues that have unfortunately been damaged, but they’re just waiting to be brought back to life,” Lehman said. “I’m here, and I want to help save these works of art. It’s more than just my passion; it’s part of my faith.”
