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Spain laughs (and groans) at yet another botched art restoration

The Local Spain
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Spain laughs (and groans) at yet another botched art restoration
Before and after photos taken by Antonio Guzman Capel.

Oops. Spain did it again.

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The attempted repair of a statue on the façade of an historic building in the Spanish city of Palencia has been mocked for its “cartoon like appearance” in the latest case of Spanish art restoration gone wrong.  

The new restoration disaster is making headlines in Spain after it emerged that a weathered sculpture on the one of the city’s most emblematic buildings had undergone a revamp that didn’t exactly turn out as it should.

'It's more like a cartoon head than the artistic head of one of Palencia's most emblematic buildings,' outraged local painter Antonio Guzman Capel wrote in a Facebook with before and after shots of the statue.


Photo of the botched restoration taken by artist Antonio Guzman Capel. 

One social media user compared the new sculpture to 'sand sculptures kids do on the beach,' while another quipped that "it looked like a plasticine model made in kindergarden”.

The statue was reportedly replaced during restoration work on the listed building which dates from 1919 and now houses a Unicaja bank.

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It is unclear who is responsible for the “restoration” which is labeled a "chapuza" in Spanish. 

It has been dubbed the new Ecce Homo, in reference to the now infamous attempts by Cecilia Giménez, who in 2012 at the age of 82 decided to touch-up a painting in her local chapel.

 

The orginal work by Elias Garcia had deteriorated before the botched restoration Photo: AFP

The disastrous repair made headlines across the world, but changed the fortunes of the small Aragon town of Borja by attracting tourists and even inspired an opera.

Two years ago another restoration attempt also brought ridicule when a 500-year-old St George’s statue in a corner of a small church in Navarra suffered the indignity of a rather garish paint job.


Before and after images of the statue in the hamlet of Estella, Navarra.

Almudena Gonzalez, another local, wrote on Facebook that the Palencia restoration 'makes me want to cry.'

'It's terrible. And to think of all the great artists we have.'

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