Twenty-five years in the making, Polidori has painstakingly captured various elements under restoration in Versailles. The 18th century palace has recently undergone a process of mummification; the hardening of its decorative elements against the wear and tear of the 3 million visitors it receives each year.

Polidoris pictures are as much an exercise in still life photography as a comment on the notion of restoration. Exquisite and opulent subject matter, photographed in painstaking detail, makes you wonder if restoration is anything more than maquillage of a contemporary culture, rather than the preservation of the past: historical revisionism and present societys superego as Polidori suggests.