Second coming for Notre Dame's salvaged artworks

There was a moment on 15 April 2019 as the flames consuming Notre Dame Cathedral roared into the evening sky when it seemed all would be lost.

- Kim Willsher

Miraculously, firefighters stopped the blaze reaching the bell towers whose collapse would have almost certainly brought the facade down - and from destroying the bells, the Grand Organ and the Parisian monument's stained-glass rosette windows.

The bee hives on the roof also survived, along with dozens of treasures including precious artworks, ancient books and relics extracted by a human chain of firefighters, police and city council workers.

In the weeks after, as the damage was assessed, a unique collection of 17th-century religious paintings was removed from the cathedral, damp but mostly undamaged.

The 13 "Mays" - part of a series of 76 large oil works painted by the best artists in France between 1630 and 1707 had hung in the cathedral's chapels, often overlooked by visitors.

They will go on public display, having been restored by experts from Mobilier National, the body charged with conserving France's historical objects, before returning to Notre Dame for its reopening in December.

Emmanuel Pénicaut, director of Mobilier National collections, said: "We were very lucky to be able to get them out with just a little water damage and dust. It was rather miraculous.