DERIDDER — Artist Elise Grenier revisited the Beauregard Parish Courthouse on Tuesday to begin her final restorative touches to Courtroom 1, as renovation work nears completion.

Grenier was hired by Judges Martha Ann O’Neal and C. Kerry Anderson to return the impressive canvas art piece that towers above the judge’s bench to its original glory. But she said that even she didn’t expect the dramatic results she obtained.

“Sometimes when I restore a piece, it’s hard to see the difference unless you were there for the entire process,” she said. “This piece, though, it’s truly amazing to see the palette of colors that we found underneath.”

The marouflage artwork depicting Roman ruins spans the length of one wall, and Grenier and her team spent six weeks cleaning away the dust and dirt that 100 years laid over it.

All the while, she documented the efforts with photos and videos posted to the Grenier Conservation social media page. She found cracks that she injected with adhesive, repaired grout work and retouched small missing fragments. But she stressed that only 2 percent of the entire piece was retouched.

“Many people erroneously believe that restoring means repainting and retouching,” she said. “But it is extremely important to not retouch an original piece unless absolutely necessary.”

By today’s standards, Grenier said, any areas that are retouched on original artwork must be documented for posterity and be reversible.

“Just like in medicine, there may be advances that come along in the future that can go beyond today’s efforts to restore a piece,” she said. “And we never want our interventions confused with the original.”

Grenier was given permission by the Beauregard Parish Police Jury to leave a small corner the way she’d found it, and she said she was grateful to be able to leave something behind to illustrate the dramatic transformation.

One mystery long debated in the community is the identity of the artist behind the painting. Grenier said no signature was found on the piece, but that she believes the artist was Italian-trained and experienced.

“These brushstrokes were quick and sure,” she said. “This is a massive piece, and at no point does it appear that they lost perspective on the work. There are no mistakes in the lighting and shading that I can find.”

One thing she is certain about, however, is that the work wasn’t done by Conrad Albrizio, whose murals and paintings adorn several government buildings across the state, including DeRidder’s historic post office building.

Grenier said she studied Albrizio extensively and is certain that the artistic style displayed in the courtroom piece doesn’t match his impressionistic work.

“I’m sure that there is documentation of who was hired to paint the piece somewhere,” she said. “And I must say I am very curious myself of who it was.”

On Tuesday, Grenier began work on her final project in the courthouse as she performed evaluation tests on the large crest mounted just above the judge’s bench beneath the painting.

Originally, she said, the piece was assumed to have been wooden just like the room’s framework, but it’s really a plaster piece covered in traces of gold leaf that was then painted over at least twice in a dark brown stain.

She said the likely reason why such an impressive piece was painted over was simply that it was beginning to fade or flake.

“Conservation is a fairly new science, and all those years ago the traditional way to repair things of this nature was simply to paint over it,” she said.

“Sometimes, like in this case, you never really know what you will find when you begin working on something that is this old. It’s like a science and a treasure hunt all at the same time.”

Construction at the courthouse is expected to reach completion by the end of August, with an open house tentatively set for October.