Last week I received an old sandstone falcon. This came from the façade tympanum of the Valckenier House Franeker. This house was built in 1662 as a residence for Reverend Valckenier, and therefore it received a Falcon as an identifier.

The Valckenier House has been refurbished and would be put on the market as a retail property. But the municipality put the condition that the falcon was to be put back on the roof. Therefore, the developer, Elizen Vastgoed from Twello, went on a search and found the statue in storage somewhere in Franeker (at retired fellow sculptor Anske de Boer). The old falcon was in pieces and I was asked if I could fix it. My answer was that I could do that, but the stone was so weakened that I could not give a guarantee that the old falcon would not fall down again over time. I therefore proposed to create a reconstructed copy out of the same stone as the original, based on the ancient falcon.

At first I thought it was an odd bird with a somewhat strange head, until I figured out that it, of course, must have worn a falconer's hood. Of course, the beak is also completely weathered away. At the time it was attached to the gable top with an iron pin, and that has been the main cause of the serious damage.

(update: in retrospect it appears I've interpreted this correctly. As stated in the comments below this article, the falcon appears in the coat of arms of the Valckenier family. A distant ancestor of Johannes Valckenier was in the service of the Duke of Gelre. Due to a sordid case in 1580 he had to spend some time in anonymity under the name of Geelrok, which is why the falcon in the family crest got his cap.)

The iron had started to rust and had split the base by expanding.  Add to this the fact that the legs and tail were carved completely free ,  the salty sea breeze coming from the Wadden Sea, and the hugely acidic droppings from pigeons and seagulls that regularly occupied a vantage point on top of the falcon, then it makes sense that even the durable Bentheimer sandstone gave out in this case.

Next week I'll start restoring the Falcon, in anticipation of the new stone I ordered. I will also reconstruct the missing parts in Plastiline-clay, so I can carve a proper copy.

On the old Falcon I found lots of traces of gilding. Therefore the new Falcon as well will be gold-plated in its entirety.

Update: Putting the falcon together again

The old falcon was first, put together using two stainless steel threaded rods, epoxy adhesive and restoration mortar. Then I added the missing parts with plastiline clay. This is clay that never hardens. The old falcon had a huge gap between the shoulders, where for centuries the seagull's droppings did their corrosive work. The beak and talons had suffered too, whereas the wings and the rest of the legs were still relatively sharp. So Bentheimer sandstone can remain well over 300 years in good condition! If only not too many seagulls perch on it.

Because of the rusting of the iron support pin, the wing tips and the tail had broken off and disappeared. I added those first in plastiline before I started carving.

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