The Angel Maker

There are some things you only find in Rome.

Down a narrow street behind the Teatro di Pompeo, inside a studio that smells of dust, turpentine and time, I watched a man restoring angels. Not metaphorically—literally. Plaster cherubs laid out across the table, grey with primer, one mid-stroke under his steady brush. The place looked more like a reliquary than a workshop. And in a way, it was.

He’s a master restorer. The kind of figure you expect in an old Fellini film, surrounded by faded tapestries, cracked frames, and gold leaf so fine it breathes when you exhale near it. But this wasn’t a scene. This was a day’s work. Centuries of art passed through his hands without fanfare.

It’s hard to imagine a better backdrop than Rome. The entire city is a restoration. A palimpsest of empires, of marble and paint clinging to walls that refuse to fall. And here, in Vicolo Sforza Cesarini, it feels like time slows down just enough to let someone put things back together again.

I called this photo The Angel Maker. Not because he created them, but because he keeps them from disappearing. Because in a world of fast fades and digital noise, there’s something quietly radical about taking the time to repair a gesture, a finger, a fold of cloth carved two centuries ago.

He doesn’t perform for the camera. He barely notices it. His attention is elsewhere—on the curve of a shoulder, the dryness of the paint, the silence between one brushstroke and the next.

And really, what better city than Rome to sit with ghosts and give them back their shape?