Writing soon after the restoration, Greene wrote that "the figure of the Bard" was removed to be "cleansed of dust &c". He noted that the figure and cushion were carved from a single piece of limestone. He added that "care was taken, as nearly as could be, not to add to or diminish what the work consisted of, and appear'd to have been when first erected: And really, except changing the substance of the Architraves from alabaster to Marble; nothing has been chang'd, nothing alter'd, except supplying with original material, (sav'd for that purpose,) whatsoever was by accident broken off; reviving the Old Colouring, and renewing the Gilding that was lost". John Hall, the limner from Bristol hired to do the restoration, painted a picture of the monument on pasteboard before 1748. Greene also had a plaster cast of the head made before the restoration began.