St John Restored

The painting of St John the Evangelist by Gaspar de Crayer (1582–1669) which hangs in the south aisle of Lancing Chapel has recently been beautifully restored. The picture was given to the College in 1930 by Prince Vladimir Galitzine. The Galitzine family escaped from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and came to live as refugees in Surrey. Their three sons, Nicholas, George and Emanuel, attended Lancing College between 1927 and the mid-1930s. They established a strong link with the school and Emanuel’s two sons also both attended Lancing: Michael (Olds 1962–1966) and Emanuel (Olds 1964–1969). At the Millennium, the family gathered to plant a copse of silver birch trees near the open-air theatre at the College.

Last year a distant cousin of the Galitzines, Sophie Reddington, a picture restorer based in Hove, who currently has three children at Lancing, generously offered to restore and conserve the painting. The painstaking task was carried out as work experience by two student conservators: Kateryna Havrylova and Olha Kvasnytsia who were living with the Reddingtons as refugees from Ukraine. On 13 February 2023, the Orthodox New Year’s Eve, a gathering of the Galitzine and Reddington families attended a brief ceremony in the Chapel to celebrate the rehanging of the painting and the symbolic symmetry of displaced people finding sanctuary.