French volunteers perform restoration work in Green-Wood Cemetery
TLC for Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s ‘Angel of Music’ Monument
Proof that France’s generosity to the U.S. didn’t end with independence or the Statue of Liberty was found in Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery this past Wednesday when volunteers from the renowned preservationist organization Union REMPART braved a mid-summer sun to clean and treat the “Angel of Music,” a striking bronze sculpture that marks the tomb of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the U.S.’s first internationally famous composer and one of Green-Wood’s most venerable interments.
The chantiers, as the youthful volunteers are known, stood atop a 6-foot high platform erected around the sculpture, scrubbing the weather-darkened bronze with long-handled wood brushes under the guidance of experienced chantier Olivier Hergault, while Green-Wood personnel passed up buckets of water mixed with dishwashing detergent.
“In France, we have a lot of things to be preserved,” Hergault said later. “It’s a way to share our knowledge of the process with people here.”