Updated July 20

The commissioning of a new altarpiece for the Kirkop Parish priest has led to disappointment, frustration and disbelief in the community, a village band club has said.

The new altarpiece, to be commissioned by the Confraternity of St Joseph, would replace an 18th-century depiction by Francesco Zahra, which would be placed in a separate filial church.

In a statement on Friday, the Għaqda Mużikali San Leonardu said the club, as well as the genuine residents of Kirkop and various professionals in the local artistic, cultural and art spheres, were still in disbelief at the state of affairs. 

The club said that while it did not have anything against commissioned artist Manuel Farrugia, who it considered a superb talent and technically accomplished, the new altarpiece, representing the death of St Joseph, was not only doing away with the original theme and dedication of the altar celebrating the cult of Our Lady of Sorrows, but it was being proposed at the expense of the Pietà depiction by Zahra, stylistically datable to the years between 1740 and 1750. 

All this was being done with the blessing of the various Church commissions who, it said, should be there to safeguard the artistic heritage in churches. It hoped these were properly briefed and consulted. 

The club noted that most of the Maltese rural parishes, like Kirkop, did not enjoy the wealthy patronage of members of the Order of St John, or lucrative trading families. Thus when entering such churches one could not expect to come across high and sophisticated artistic watermarks.

The studied altarpieces at Kirkop portrayed the hand of Gio Nicola Buhagiar, Rocco Buhagiar and Francesco Zahra. The replacement would deprive this church of Zahra who had been described as “Malta’s most important native painter of the mid-18th century [whose] style wonderfully captured the spirit of the Late Baroque”.

Zahra’s piece was commissioned in the mid-18th century and it was completely unethical to remove a painting and deprive it of its original context with a light heart. It pointed out that not even Fr Ġużepp Barbara, parish priest and founder of the Confraternity of St Joseph, had succumbed to the pressures of his time to replace this painting.

“It is disrespectful of all cultural heritage conventions to transfer a painting from an appreciably good environment to lesser environs, in an underutilised filial church, with practically no empty walls where it could hang.

Consequently, this painting would either be stored away in oblivion, or hang instead of another painting which would have to be sidelined – a problem to which the current parish priest had no answer yet. 

Such a decision would undoubtedly have repercussions on the delicate parochial balance of Kirkop’s community. 

The club pointed out that the cult of St Joseph was already represented in a sottoquadro in the same altar where the Zahra painting hung. It would have been a more sensible decision to opt for a full conservation treatment of the Zahra painting, which needed attention, and consider the replacement of the sottoquadro, which was an artistically mediocre work by an unknown foreign artist.

“It is in this light that we regretfully think that this was a fast decision, or perhaps an uniformed one.”

The club asked if the parish council was aware of this request to commission a new altarpiece and if it had been given the possibility to discuss and pass on its suggestions, as it normally happened in such delicate issues? 

It asked if the Curia’s Sacred Art Commission and the Commission for the Catholic Cultural Heritage were aware of the developments, and if they had discussed the fact that the new painting would be replacing an 18th-century depiction by Zahra. 

The club said that while it was not objecting the introduction of a new painting representing St Joseph, this could not happen at the expense of any of the historic altarpieces because these were an intrinsic part of Kirkop’s heritage.

They were the parishes’ humble treasures and portrayed the important historical devotions which shaped up Kirkop’s religious identity. These paintings, it said, could only be fully understood if they retained their original context.

Rival band club Soċjetà Mużikali San Ġużepp Ħal Kirkop hit back one day later, saying on Saturday that many of the claims about the altarpiece plans were untrue.