{"id":217035,"date":"2025-12-29T22:25:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/217035\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T22:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T22:25:05","slug":"cecilia-gimenez-the-amateur-painter-who-botched-the-ecce-homo-fresco-restoration-dies-aged-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/217035\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecilia Gim\u00e9nez, the amateur painter who ‘botched’ the ‘Ecce Homo’ fresco restoration, dies aged 91"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cecilia Gim\u00e9nez Zueco, the amateur artist who went viral with her well-intentioned by ultimately ill-fated restoration of a fresco of Jesus Christ in rural Spain, has died. She was 94. <\/p>\n

In 2012, Gim\u00e9nez Zueco, a resident of the town of Borja, in Zaragoza, triggered a wave of criticism when her unfortunate attempt to revive the 1930 original Ecce Homo resulted in widespread ridicule. <\/p>\n

The fresco was a typical example of a devotional art piece, characteristic of small local Spanish churches in the early 20th century. It was painted in a naive or folk art style, which added to its charm.<\/p>\n

Condemned as a ‘fiasco’ for its apparent transformation of the image into that of a monkey, the work began famous for all the wrong reasons, with social media platforms swiftly sharing millions of people’s views on the image. It inspired countless memes, jokes, and even a Twitter profile (@eccemono) with its own hashtags.<\/p>\n

But as evidence that every cloud does have a silver lining, Gim\u00e9nez’s restoration also brought the world’s media to the town and that extreme attention was followed by legions of tourists from around the world. <\/p>\n

Gim\u00e9nez later even opened an exhibition <\/a>of her paintings, this time original and unrestored. What’s undeniable is that she made Borja’s Ecce Homo famous and she became a pop phenomenon. She also set a precedent in the field of failed restorations, as all subsequent restorations were labelled as “another Ecce Homo”.<\/p>\n

In recognition of her efforts the town’s mayor, Eduardo Arilla posted a tribute on Facebook, describing her as one of the Borja’s most beloved residents: “Her infinite generosity is reflected in what we have been able to do thanks to all that Ecce Homo has brought. Rest in peace, Cecilia, we will always remember you”.<\/p>\n

Additional sources \u2022 AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cecilia Gim\u00e9nez Zueco, the amateur artist who went viral with her well-intentioned by ultimately ill-fated restoration of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2273,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,3208,2283,2846,112702],"class_list":{"0":"post-217035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-obituary","18":"tag-painting","19":"tag-spain","20":"tag-zaragoza"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}