Jun 24, 2020 - World

Another botched painting restoration in Spain prompts regulations call

Rebecca Falconer

"The immaculate Conception of Los venerables" by Spanish painter Bartolome Murillo at the Prado Museum on June 4, 2020 in Madrid — "The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables" by Spanish painter Bartolome Murillo at the Prado Museum in Madrid on June 4. Photo: Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images

Spain's Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators issued a statement on Tuesday calling for tighter regulations after another Spanish artwork was disfigured during restoration, warning "part of our heritage is disappearing by these disastrous actions."

Details: In the latest example, the unnamed owner of the copy of Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's "The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables" paid €1,200 ($1,350) for it to be cleaned by a furniture restorer, according to Europa Press. The images below show the results of two attempts to fix the botched job.

The big picture: It's drawn comparisons to a prized fresco of Jesus Christ in Borja that was dubbed "Monkey Christ," after a parishioner's disastrous attempts to clean it in 2012.

Others compared it to a failed restoration of a 16th-Century statue of St. George at a Navarre church last year. Some likened the new-look St. George to a Playmobil figure, the BBC notes.
The latest restoration attempt was widely mocked on social media and prompted the British Royal Academy of Arts to launch a meme competition on Tuesday, asking Twitter users: "can do a better job at restoring this copy?"

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Another botched painting restoration in Spain prompts regulations call

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