The year is 2012
A fresco titled Ecce Homo rests on a pillar in a small Church in the obscure town of Borja Spain
It was painted around 1930 directly on the wall by a minor Spanish artist
And after 82 years had had started to flake significantly from moisture buildup
Meet Cecilia Giménez
Longtime parishioner and amateur painter who is upset with the damage the painting has taken
So she decides to try and restore it herself
She gets some way through the restoration and decides to take a holiday and let it dry then return and finish it
Some time later, the town's folks start to take notice of the changes
They aren't pleased
At first the mayor suspects vandalism
But then folks eventually find out it was done by a local
Mrs. Giménez
Eventually a local newspaper reports on the incident and that's when things really get rolling
The news was out and online communities exploded
discussion threads criticism memes edits cartoons
pastries parodies a bicycle cosplays tattoos
Japanese candy pixel art nail painting stamps SNL skits and general hilarity spread far and wide
And became an internet sensation
The new painting is mocked and ridiculed for days on end
Many people call it the worst art restoration ever and the news travels all around the world
Let's skip forward 6 years. The location is also Spain this 16th century sculpture of
St George has been aging badly the wood has darkened and lots of the paint has flaked off the local parish
decides to take matters into their own hands
The result is less than adequate one of the eyes veers off to the right
the skin is now a
cartoonish pink colour and all the subtlety of the
original paint job is lost even more upsetting is the statue is a rare example of polychrome sculpture a complex process used to make
Statues more lifelike and it gets worse
Experts say that with this amount of over painting removing it will also mean the detail in color of the original will be lost forever
Apparently the church hired an arts and crafts teacher to do the job. Let's get forward three months the location Spain
Again.
A set of fifteenth-century statues was painted in garish colors by a local parishioner with permission from the priest.
Of Course. I'm not a professional she states but I always like to do it and the figures really needed to be painted.
"So uh,
You know how to paint, right?"
"um
Yeah...sure"
Back to 2012. The news about the fresco continues to spread many comment on the painting
Similarity to a monkey people start to call it "Ecce Mono".
Mrs. Jimenez is interviewed by a news station where she defends herself
But without strong evidence most of it falls on deaf ears
Now at this point many of you may be angry at Cecilia Jimenez
And I wouldn't blame you some people at the time also had quite vitriolic
comments about her and many thought that this was just an arrogant old woman who had ruined a valuable painting without permission and
Yeah, what she did was pretty arrogant
but according to her she did get permission and she also claimed that people had watched her working in broad daylight and had not said
A word and apparently this was also not her first time working on the painting
She recounted that she spent time in an apartment by the church and had touched up the painting repeatedly
specifically on the tunic with the permission of the parish priests and
Caretakers and at some point she decided it needed a major rework on the face
Which was halted after her first stage of brushwork now
It would be nice to think that the only reason this looked bad was because it was stopped very early
But the proportions and muddy colors still wouldn't make much sense for a first stage
That's not to say there isn't a possibility if she was given more time
there could have been a better result because many parts do look very
Unfinished, but I don't think it would be able to match the original painting and even if mrs
Jimenez had the skills to replicate the work. That's not really the point of a proper restoration
I've watched over 30 hours of baumgartner restoration
So I'm pretty much an expert but according to the opinions of these other experts
Restoration is only supposed to restore what has been lost not to over paint an add-on to the artists original vision
This is also one of the fatal flaws of the restoration of the st. George sculpture. So as soon as mrs
Jimenez started to go past the flaky areas and eventually completely cover up the face
She should have stopped and whether the priest actually did give permission or not. We may never truly know
However a year later it was revealed
The priest was arrested for alleged sexual abuse and embezzlement of two hundred and eighty five
Thousand dollars the priests lawyer said the case had nothing to do with the painting incident
You can make of that what you will mrs
Jimenez also had a great deal of remorse for what she did once she realized the full extent of her actions
Many reports said she suffered a great deal at the time
refusing to eat visiting a
Psychiatrist just general stress picture this you're an 80 year old woman and your favorite local painting is deteriorating
And you think you can restore it a bit first you start with small areas
but eventually you want to fix the whole image you start painting on the flaking spots and then you notice this spot is also flaking
Off and this spot doesn't look the same and then this color doesn't quite match and then the paint starts getting absorbed
And before you know it you've covered up the whole thing
so maybe you need to take a break and rethink how you're going to approach this then over the next two weeks your
Restoration becomes a worldwide social media sensation you are ridiculed and laughed at by millions of people
This is an important thing to note
You also have to understand that international backlash for anyone probably does terrible things to their mental health
Especially since her mistakes were blown a bit out of proportion as for claims that this painting was rare and valuable
And here is what she did to this rare and valuable
Sure, it was old and the town's folk did have a sentimental attachment to it
But several sources say it had very little historical significance and wasn't really that valuable
A lot of this can be demonstrated just by the writings about the painter of the original Elias Garcia
Martinez is pretty much only known because of the botched
Restoration and it gets better a few years later a copy of the painting by the same artist was discovered by two antique dealers
It's an earlier work and is in much better condition
So it turns out - Celia Jimenez's mistake was actually far less
Significant than most people believe what's more is that Spain had been going through an economic recession
But with help from the media the town and the church became quite a tourist attraction
Later the church reported nearly
200,000 visitors within the last six years and
57 thousand dollars per year from merchandise and tourist fees later an opera based around Jimenez's
life was created. It's about as strange as you would expect
As for claims that Jimenez was full of herself
It's not far-fetched to say that she has some pride, but honestly if you made a mistake
That was so hilarious that it became famous
Wouldn't she want at least some recognition and a cut of the profits and these are profits just from tourists visitors and merch sales
She did not go around copyright claiming Internet users if anyone was confused
But even from these small sources of revenue this painting produced a lot of money Ecce Mono turned out to be great at selling merchandise
Pens t-shirts mugs the usual stuff. The money was eventually split between mrs
Jimenez and the sanctuaries retirement home. Mrs. Jimenez is reportedly using her half to take care of her son who has cerebral palsy
Jimenez also, eventually painted her own version of Jesus for a wine label. Sure, the image might be a bit wonky
But it's stylistically clear
The features are well defined and I would say it's a big improvement
Another Ecce Mono know inspired wine also exists
Which apparently is pretty good and even won an award with all the new attention
She also opened up an art show full of her other paintings that are so much better than what you would expect
Oh, and she also sold one on ebay
The painting is now permanently on display next to a picture of the original version
Some folks took their own interpretive stance on the now famous work one reporter wrote the restoration provides rare raw
access to human fate that work
representing one woman's vision of her savior
Uncompromised by schooling. It was unclear whether experts could ever properly restore Ecce Homo
But I don't think anyone has the intention of doing so
now that the ruined version is producing more money than the original ever did so why do botched art restorations like this happen?
So often well, I can't tell you why it seems to be happening so much in Spain
But I can tell you that art especially old art is
Extremely delicate for a proper restoration a restorer has to approach each and every artwork as its own problem
What chemicals need to be used how it should be cleaned how it should be retouched?
Where it should be retouched if it should be retouched
It's quite complicated and it requires a trained expert to do one properly without causing irreversible damage
Not only are these restorations bad
They also make getting back the original near impossible one expert says this happens a lot more often than newspapers
Talk about and when it comes to really old art, that's just how it is over time
it's going to pass through a lot of hands and it's going to get damaged and accumulate grime and
eventually
Someone is going to try and fix it if it's not in a museum or heavily guarded by someone with a lot of knowledge
It's going to deteriorate by natural processes or human
Interference as for the 16th century statue a rear esther ation has been completed
And as far as I know there has been no further news on the set of statues
So what is the lesson in all of this?
Well if you ever make a mistake
just remember to make that mistake so spectacularly disastrous that you become famous for it, but in all seriousness
Please do not go vandalizing art for fame
You are probably not going to get the same result art impacts us in ways we may not expect in this case
It was the story of a woman who in good faith went in a bit over her head
Became the creator of a meme and in an unlikely turn of events managed to come out on top
Just in the future if you plan on doing something to an antique, please just contact an expert first