Cathedral restoration a chance to recreate precious lost icon

Disappearance of a Byzantine painting remains a mystery.

The whereabouts of a priceless ancient holy icon, brought to New Zealand in the mid-1800s by a French missionary, remains a riddle.

But work has just finished on the North Shore on a new icon, modelled on the Byzantine original which dates back before 750AD.

The painting, the Pompallier Madonna, was stolen from a school in Wellington some years ago.

Just as in best-seller The Da Vinci Code, rumours persist of secret Vatican involvement in the intrigue. And as in the book, an ancient artefact is at stake, combined with a clandestine series of events: a precious artefact that had been closely guarded mysteriously vanishes, is sighted shortly afterwards but remains missing now for many decades.

Some New Zealand Catholics believe a covert Papal official spirited the gold and blue painting back to Rome. But others dismiss this as gossip and say the painting is in the hands of a private owner in New Zealand who is unaware of its true value and significance.

When Bishop Jean Baptiste Francois Pompallier visited Pope Pius IX in Rome in 1847, he was given the ancient small painting to bring to New Zealand.

That painting became known as the Pompallier Madonna.

The Pope had been given the painting when he was elected in 1846. For more than a century, it remained safe but it disappeared almost half a century ago.

Society of Mary archivist Brother Gerard Hogg said that during the late 1960s the painting was hanging in a glass cabinet at St Patrick's College, Wellington.

Soon after the icon vanished, a passerby spotted it in the window of a second-hand shop and called the school.

"So college staff went there immediately, but the shop was closed. When it reopened, the man there said he couldn't remember any such item being for sale," he said.

The $12 million conservation and restoration of St Patrick's Cathedral in Auckland resulted in a new icon being commissioned, modelled on the original artwork.

Artist Michael Pervan has completed the icon and is carving a new stone altar. From the tiny wooden Studio of St John the Baptist at St Joseph's, Takapuna, he has just finished a 1.5m by 1m icon of Our Lady in gold leaf and egg tempera, modelled on the original.

"But it's not the same as the original," he stressed. "It's by no means a copy. It's a brand new, authentic icon done in New Zealand."

Cathedral administrator Father Bernard Kiely dismissed speculation that Church officials took the original back to the Vatican.

Mr Pervan will carve sacred words in Hebrew, Maori, Greek, Latin and English on the altar to acknowledge the roots of Catholicism and use images from the ancient celtic Book of Kells, intertwined with colonial artistry.

What is the Pompallier Madonna?

* Said to be the most important artwork brought to New Zealand.

* In 750AD, Sisters of the Immaculate Conception took it from Byzantine to Rome.

* This was at the time of iconoclastic persecution in the East.

* Given to Pope Pius IX by the Benedictine Sisters of the Campus Martius.

* Pope Pius IX gave it to New Zealanders when he was elected in 1846.

* Bishop Pompallier took it from Rome when he established the Catholic Church here.