Restoration demands a marriage of scientific and technical expertise with knowledge of art and incredible patience
When Cecilia Giménez noticed a flaking and faded painting on the wall of her local church in 2012, her decision to pick up a paintbrush would result in one of the world’s most infamous cases of art restoration.
The Spanish octogenarian’s Mr Bean-like job on the 20th century fresco, done “spontaneously and with good intentions”, turned Jesus into something resembling a “bloated hedgehog” and “a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic”.
