Elderly woman destroys 19th-century fresco with DIY restoration

[Malsua]

I can't help but laugh at what this old bat did to this painting. HAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! It looks like a Chimpanzee in a babushka!!!
----------
Elderly woman destroys 19th-century fresco with DIY restoration

A 19th century Spanish fresco has been ruined after a good Samaritan attempted a DIY restoration of the artwork.

Ecce Homo by 19th-century painter ElÃ*as GarcÃ*a MartÃ*nez on the walls of the church of Santuario de Misericordia Photo: gawker.com









By Amy Willis, Los Angeles

10:26AM BST 22 Aug 2012

25 Comments


Three separate photographs of “Ecce Homo” by painter Elias Garcia Martinez show extensive damage caused by an elderly woman who decided the masterpiece needed a little refurbishment.

But in a time of austerity, rather than calling in a professional to complete the job, the unnamed woman attempted to restore the mural herself – at a devastating cost.

The result was a botched repair where the intricate brush strokes of Martinez were replaced with a haphazard splattering of the octogenarian's paint. Years of carefully calculated depth of expression simply washed out by copious amounts of red and brown.

The damage was discovered after the 19th century painter's granddaughter made a donation to the Centro de Estudios Borjanos in Borja, Spain, a couple of weeks ago. The Centro holds an archive of regional religious paintings with regularly-updated photographs.

After receiving the donation, employees at the Centro went to check on the mural at the church of Santuario de Misericodia only to find it drastically altered.

22 Aug 2012


An original photograph of the painting taken in 2010, shows only minimal deterioration with Jesus crowned in thorns clearly visible in the portrait. There is slight white speckling across the piece.

Large white patches appear in a second photograph of the painting taken in July this year, possibly scrubbed off as the octogenarian began her project.

A final photograph reveals a portrait transformed beyond recognition.

The amateur restorer said she had undertaken the project "with good intentions" but, as culture councillor Juan Maria de Ojeda said, "she had gotten out of hand".

The restoration work was completed without permission.

[American Patriot]

More like a retard....

LMAO!

[American Patriot]

I can't stop laughing Mal! Shame on you for making me choke on my Pepsi! LOL!


HAHAHAHAHA

ROTFLMAO!

[MinutemanCO]

She needs a painting lesson or two.

[MagnetMan]

I saw this article on another site and was sure it had to be fake. Wow, can't believe someone could really do this!

[Ryan Ruck]

[American Patriot]

Ryan, that has GOT to be the BEST gif I have ever seen.

It kills me because he was a "hologram" and computer and not a real person so such exasperation on the face of a computer is frippin' hilarious.

You know, several people I showed that too didn't think there was ANY humor in it for some reason. hehehehe I can't see why.

[Malsua]

Some people can't envision a Chimp in a babushka. I however, have an active and vivid imagination and find the image hilarious. It's quite a shame the art is wrecked, but oh well! Not laughing won't change that a bit!

[American Patriot]

Yeah, some people just don't have a sense of humor I reckon.

You're right, not laughing won't fix it. So, laugh away.

[Ryan Ruck]

Yeah, I think The Doc was probably my favorite character on Voyager. It must have been has acerbic wit. In case you were wondering, that is from the episode where he was believing he is a real person trapped on a holodeck (S02E03) and happened right after the Janeway hologram deleted herself.




And holy crap! I just noticed Mal has an avatar now!

[American Patriot]

Hahaha Personally, I think you ought to make Doc your avatar. LOL!

But damn it does fit this thread (and that other one too!) lol

[Ryan Ruck]

Update!

Ecce Homo Fresco Painter Who Turned Jesus into 'Hairy Monkey' Signs Lucrative Royalties Deal

August 22, 2013

An 82-year-old Spanish pensioner who gained global notoriety for ruining a fresco of Christ in a clumsy restoration has signed a lucrative royalty deal for the merchandising of her 'art'.

Cecilia Gimenez famously turned an oil fresco painted in the Misericordia Church in Borja, north eastern Spain, into an abomination described by the BBC as resembling a "crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey."

Her restoration of the 1910 depiction of Christ called Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Spanish artist Elias Garcia Martinez, made headlines all over the world.

However, media attention turned Gimenez's handiwork into a massive touristic attraction.

Visitors craving to have a close look at the botched restoration poured into Borja, prompting low-cost airline Ryanair to offer special fares to the nearby town of Zaragoza.

Church officials also decided to keep the fresco as it was, and introduce an entry fee.

One year on some 57,000 people have paid €1 to see the restoration, according to the foundation that manages the church, which said the money raised so far from ticket sales has been used to improve the building and cover personnel costs.

Gimenz, who first demanded her share of the takings in September last year, has now reached an agreement with the foundation over her work's image rights.

The pensioner is entitled to 49% of profits generated from the merchandising of the restored Ecce Homo.

The infamous image, which has already been restyled in dozens of ways and featured in an art exhibition in Barcelona, is now to be imprinted on t-shirts, mugs and key-chains.

According to the deal, signed on the anniversary of the restoration, the foundation will retain the remaining share of revenues.

Gimenez pledged to use her share of the money to fund charitable work.

"No one is going to get rich out of this," Gimenez's lawyer told AFP. "The foundation and Cecilia are to give the profits to charity."

Gimenez had earlier said she wanted to donate the money to charities for muscular atrophy, a condition affecting her son.

However the deal didn't please descendants of the original painter Garcia Martinez.

Martinez's family witheld their consent as they would like to see the painting returned to its original state, according to Borja's deputy mayor Juan Maria Ojeda.

"That is the main disagreement," said Ojeda. "Some of them want a restoration, which is probably impossible now, and some are just asking for it to be removed from where it is and put somewhere else".


Spanish pensioner Cecilia Giménez botched the restoration of a Jesus oil fresco in the Misericordia Church in Borja

[Malsua]

Unbelievable. I could have done a better job, and this old twat gets paid for ruining it??? sheesh.

[American Patriot]

This really bugs you doesn't it Mal? hahaha

Sorry... I'm the sort of person that says "If it is a Constitution, it has value. If it's a painting, it might be pretty or it might be a Picaso - but I ain't buying it."

Or protecting it. Or giving a shit if it is burned.

I do have a sense of history and all that but I just honestly can't understand why people spend money on ancient oil paintings... and to top it all off, it's SPANISH! lol

(I have studied a lot of the history of Spain and what they did to everyone around them, the Caribbean, what they've done in America, and so forth, and they were just as bad as the freaking muslims for a time)

[Malsua]

I couldn't give a squat about the painting, it's the rewarding of failure that bothers me.

[American Patriot]

Well.... I kind of figured that.

Which explains why none of us like the fact that welfare and government money recipients make more than many regular people who are busting their asses on their jobs.

(http://kdvr.com/2013/08/21/study-wel...AADQAAAJlTBAA=)

[Ryan Ruck]

This thread will not die!

The field of amateur artifact restoration is alive and well!

King Tut’s Mask, World’s ‘Most Famous Archaeological Relic,’ Has Been Permanently Damaged

January 23, 2015


A man glues part of King Tutankhamun’s mask back on at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The blue-and-gold braided beard on the burial mask was hastily glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic.

Want to hear about a bad day? They don’t get much worse than this.

King Tut’s 3,300-year-old funeral mask, called “the most famous archaeological relic in the world,” has been permanently damaged, Cairo’s Egyptian Museum announced this week. It’s still not entirely clear what happened. But it seems Tut’s drooping beard was somehow knocked off at some point last year. And then everything went from bad to worse.

Competing stories abound, the Associated Press found. “Three of the museum’s conservators reached by telephone gave differing accounts of when the incident occurred last year, and whether the beard was knocked off by accident while the mask’s case was being cleaned, or was removed because it was loose,” the news agency reported.


Amid the pandemonium, someone had the idea to hastily glue that sucker back on. According to the AP, Tut’s mask is a huge draw for tourists, so the museum wanted it back out there on the floor. Someone grabbed epoxy — an adhesive totally unsuitable for something like Tut’s mask — and, in an attempt to fix the mask, only damaged it further.

“Unfortunately, he used a very irreversible material — epoxy has a very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but I think it wasn’t suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamun’s golden mask,” one conservator, speaking on the condition of anonymity because who in their right mind would want to be linked with this debacle, told the Associated Press.

“The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab but they were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and used this quick drying, irreversible material,” he confessed.

Another museum conservator, who was present at the scene, said when one colleague realized what had happened, he grabbed a spatula to try and get the glue off, but instead left permanent scratches. “The first conservator, who inspects the artifact regularly, confirmed the scratches and said it was clear that they had been made by a tool used to scrape off the epoxy,” the AP reported.

So what’s the final damage?

There’s now a gap between the beard and the face. “Now you can see a layer of transparent yellow,” one conservator said.

Experts couldn’t believe it. “From the photos circulating among restorers, I can see that the mask has been repaired,” Egyptologist Tom Hardwick told the AP. “But you can’t tell with what.”

High resolution picture of the damage:



Should have just used some of this...

[American Patriot]

/sigh

[American Patriot]

Wait, did you know they tried to put the Sphix's nose back on after Napolean's men shot it off?

No, they didn't. I'm just kidding.

LOL