Gilding Antique Restoration Shop in SoMa: C. Mariani

C. Mariani Antiques, Restoration & Custom fills a big corner showroom at 1301 Harrison Street, at 9th Street in the SoMa design district, with Italian and French antiques from the 17th to 19th centuries, and behind it runs a workshop that restores them. Hours are Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm, and the shop asks you to call for an appointment. For an antique restoration shop that can regild a mirror, repair pietra dura and touch up chinoiserie, this atelier covers the rarest skills in San Francisco.

Claudio Mariani founded the business in 1986, and the company describes him as a third-generation artisan and antiques dealer. Today it presents itself as a showroom and atelier, and as a leading wholesaler of high-end European antiques, with a focus on Italian and French pieces. Claudio is still listed as the owner on the About page, which also gives his direct email.

The workshop has more than 20 full-time craftspeople: carpenters, upholsterers, specialty painters, gilders, refinishers, metalworkers and restorers. For more than 30 years, its antiques and custom pieces have appeared in rooms featured in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Veranda, Elle Decor and Traditional Home, and the company's press list includes the 2019 San Francisco Decorator Showcase.

Most of the city's antique repairers focus on furniture finishes. C. Mariani's restoration list goes much further. It offers 24K gilding and silver gilding, the work that brings back carved mirror frames, wall brackets and console bases. It handles Chinoiserie and other lacquer specialties, repairs to stone and metal, mirror repair, and fine art repair described as museum quality. It also makes mounts and presentation cases for objects.

Pietra dura repair is the rarest item on the list. The technique, perfected in Florence, inlays cut and polished hardstones such as lapis, malachite and jasper into marble to make flowers, birds and geometric designs. When a stone lifts or cracks out of a tabletop or cabinet panel, matching its color and grain takes a supply of old stone and a steady hand, which few studios outside Italy keep.

The restoration page is direct about cost: the minimum fee on any restoration project is $1,000. That puts C. Mariani at the top of the market and makes it a fit for valuable or sentimental pieces where a museum-grade result matters, not for a small chip on a flea-market frame.

Quotes start online. The Request a Quote form on the restoration page takes your name, email, phone and a message, and lets you upload an image of the damage. Send a clear photo of the whole piece and close-ups of each problem area, along with dimensions, so the team can tell whether the job is gilding, structural repair, finish work or a combination.

Gilded frames are the pieces most often damaged on the way to a restorer. Carry a mirror upright, never flat, so the glass does not flex and crack, and pad the carved corners with soft foam or blankets rather than bubble wrap pressed tight against the gold. Tape should never touch a gilded surface, because it lifts the leaf when it is peeled away.

Loose carved leaves, rosettes or bits of crest that have broken off should travel in a separate labelled bag. Original carving is always worth reattaching, and the gilders can only rebuild a missing ornament if they know what shape it was. If the glass itself is old, say so, since antique mercury or early silvered glass is treated differently from a modern replacement.

The shop sells its own furniture wax, formulated in Italy with a pure beeswax base and other natural ingredients, and used, the company says, by three generations of European antique collectors and dealers. It comes in Tinted, for darker antiques, or Colorless, in 450-gram tins, and costs $85 plus shipping and handling.

A small amount applied with a soft cloth cleans and protects old finishes. Wax is a good habit between professional restorations, but do not use it on gilded surfaces, which are easily rubbed through to the red bole beneath.

Because the showroom doubles as a trade gallery, mention whether you are bringing something for restoration or coming to look at stock, and set a time. Weekend visits are not possible, since the posted hours run Monday to Friday only.

The online catalogue is organized by category, from mirrors, lighting and fireplace mantels to porcelain, sculpture and books, so you can see what is on the floor before visiting. Muni lines including the 12, 19, 27 and 9R stop around 9th and Harrison, and Civic Center BART is roughly a 15-minute walk north.

The streets around Harrison and 9th are full of trade showrooms, lighting studios and fabric houses, the part of SoMa decorators call the design district. Biro & Sons, the silversmith family that has worked on Folsom Street since 1977, is a short walk north, so a gilded mirror and a silver tea service can be dropped off on the same morning.

The SF Eagle, a long-running bar on Harrison at 12th Street, anchors the leather and nightlife history of this stretch of SoMa, and the blocks around it form the city's Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District, recognized by San Francisco in 2018.

Address: 1301 Harrison Street, at 9th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5 pm; call for an appointment. Email: info@cmarianiantiques.com. Restoration: conservation, repairs, French polishing, marquetry and parquetry, 24K and silver gilding, Chinoiserie and lacquer, pietra dura, stone and metal, mirrors, fine art, leather desktops and reupholstering. Minimum restoration fee: $1,000. C. Mariani Wax: $85 per 450-gram tin.

Book ahead, upload photos with the quote form, and keep gilded pieces dry and dust-free until they reach the atelier. Ask the Karpo APP to find a lunch spot in SoMa or another design showroom nearby to round out the trip.