Bernard Buffet (10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French Expressionist painter and member of the anti-abstract art group "L'homme Témoin".  Buffet was born in Paris where he would study art at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and work in the studio of the painter Eugène Narbonne.  Among his classmates were Maurice Boitel and Louis Vuillermoz.  Supported by the art-dealer Maurice Garnier, Buffet produced religious pieces, landscapes, portraits, and other paintings.  In 1946, he had his first painting shown, a self-portrait, at the Salon des Moins de Trente Ans at the Galerie Beaux-Arts.  After that, he had at least one major exhibition every year. Buffet illustrated "Les Chants de Maldoror" written by Comte de Lautréamont in 1952. In 1955, he was awarded the first prize by the magazine Connaissance des arts, which named the 10 best post-war artists. In 1958, at the age of 30, the first retrospective of his work was held at the Galerie Charpentier. December 12, 1958, Buffet married the writer and actress Annabel Schwob. They had two daughters, Virginie and Danielle, born in 1962 and 1963, and a son, Nicola, who was born in 1973.  That same year he was named "Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur". The Bernard Buffet Museum was inaugurated on November 23rd, 1973 in Surugadaira, Japan. Throughout his life Buffet made more than 8,000 paintings and an unnumbered quantity of prints. Buffet died in his home in Tourtour, southern France, on October 4, 1999.  At that point, Buffet had been suffering from Parkinson's disease and was no longer able to work.

These two sizeable oil paintings (measuring 200cm x 350cm each), titled Nativity and St. Veronique, were a part of a much larger collection that Buffet originally painted for his private chapel.  Before the restoration, both paintings were located in the Lateran University College in Rome, where the climate conditions were not suitable especially because of the very peculiar technique used by the artist. Throughout the years, these works have begun to crack and peel, with paint coming loose from the canvas and years of dirt layering the surface.

• Photographic documentation before, during, and after restoration
• Scientific investigation by the Scientific Research Laboratory
• Removal, dismounting, and remounting of the canvas, correction of warped canvas
• Consolidation of support and pictorial surface
• Reintegration of paint and tears
• Reinforce the lining of the canvas