Top 7 Tragic Art Restorations

Restoration is an art form in its own right, helping to preserve the greatest masterpieces for future generations — yet it always calls for a critical eye: are we really preserving what the artist intended to convey? Many a heated argument has broken out among experts over the vivid colours revealed in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes after the 1980–1994 restoration, but that was far from the last case to spark controversy. Let's take a look at restorations that became famous for all the wrong reasons.

1. Elías García Martínez, Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man") (c. 1930)

Sanctuary of Mercy, Borja, Spain

The famous fresco before and after Cecilia Giménez's touch-up. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

We simply have to cover this, probably the most famous case of all, before moving on. In 2012, Cecilia Giménez put her hometown of Borja on the map with a tragically botched restoration of a fresco depicting Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. At the time an 82-year-old woman took on the job with the best of intentions (the fresco was deteriorating and no one else would touch it), but, to put it gently, she overestimated her own skills, and "Behold the Man" became "Behold the Monkey." According to Cecilia herself, the work looks that way only because she left for holiday halfway through. "They wouldn't let me finish it," the old woman complained. Which is just as well — it's perfect exactly as it is.

2. Leonardo da Vinci's "The Virgin and Child with St Anne and a Lamb" (1503), Louvre, France

Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece before restoration.

And after.

You might ask, what's wrong here? After the previous example, this one might seem harmless enough, but once the grime was removed, the colours changed so drastically that two restoration consultants resigned in protest over the cleaning methods used.

3. "Madonna and Child" (mid-20th century), Sainte-Anne-des-Pins Catholic Church, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

A local artist volunteered to restore a statue that had repeatedly been vandalised.

Photo: Gino Donato

The statue standing in front of the church in Canada had repeatedly fallen victim to vandals, who kept knocking the head off the baby Jesus. Several times the head was reattached, but when it finally went missing for good, local artist Heather Wise offered to sculpt a new one free of charge. The church, naturally, was delighted, since such work would not have come cheap.

Unfortunately, what they got wasn't quite what they expected — the baby was replaced by a figure that internet users quickly dubbed "Maggie Simpson." The artist rushed to explain that the clay head was only meant to be temporary, until she could carve the real one from stone, but the case drew so much media attention that the vandals ended up returning the original piece of the statue.

4. "Madonna and Child with St Anne" (15th century), Rañadoiro, Spain

A statue restored just two decades earlier was restored yet again. Photo: DSF/AFP/Getty Images.

Three for the price of one! And the strangest part is that just twenty years earlier the statues had been restored by professional restorer Luis Suárez Saro, who, when asked about the 2018 makeover, replied: "Not only did they use the cheapest oil paints, they picked the most tragic colours imaginable. The result is appalling. You don't know whether to laugh or cry." As for the helpful hands behind the statue's makeover, they belonged to María Luisa Menéndez, the owner of a tobacco shop, who simply meant well and thought the statues looked dull: "I painted them as best I could, in colours I thought suited them. The neighbours liked it — you can ask them yourselves." So there you have it.

5. Ancient mosaic (c. 2nd–6th century), Hatay Museum, Antakya, Turkey

The disfigured ancient mosaics. Photo by Mehmet Daşkapan, who was the first to draw attention to the botched restoration

In 2015, the mosaics of the Hatay Museum fell into the hands of incompetent restorers and now look more like internet memes — the figures distorted, the details gone. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism denied that anything had gone wrong, insisting the photos had been taken at an early stage of the work. Unfortunately, anyone with eyes could see the truth for themselves.

6. Michelangelo, "Jesse" (1508), Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Italy

Michelangelo's "Jesse" before and after restoration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

After the restoration of Michelangelo's famous masterpiece, poor Jesse was left blind — when restorers removed the grime that had built up on the frescoes over the years in order to reveal the deeper layers, some of Michelangelo's own touch-ups vanished along with the dirt. Many experts disapprove of this restoration, since it seems unlikely that the great master would have painted Jesse without eyes.

7. Damien Hirst, "Painting-by-Numbers" (2001), Eyestorm Gallery, London

Not quite a restoration, but a repair job it certainly was. In 2001, Damien Hirst, already famous for his works in formaldehyde, opened a new exhibition in London titled "Painting-by-Numbers," part of which consisted of a pile of half-empty beer bottles, coffee cups, overflowing ashtrays and old newspapers, arranged — though it looked more like scattered at random — across the whole gallery. You can probably already guess how this ends. The next morning, a cleaner named Emmanuel Asare came in, decided it was leftover rubbish from the opening, bagged it all up and threw it in a skip. Asked about the incident, he recalled: "The moment I saw the room I sighed — so much rubbish. It never crossed my mind that it could be a work of art. At least, it didn't look like one to me. So I bagged it up and threw it out." Gallery staff later rummaged through the skip, retrieved the exhibits and, using photos from the previous evening, put everything back in place. Luckily, the cleaner faced no consequences, and the artist himself, when asked, said it was simply "fantastic" and "terribly funny."