MADRID (AP).- A small Spanish town is trying to figure out what to do with a 20th-century painting of Christ that has been disfigured by a local artist who took it upon herself to restore it.
Juan Maria Ojeda, an official in Borja town, said 80-year-old Celia Gimenez decided to touch up the fresco of Christ wearing a crown of thorns in the Misericordia church because she thought it need restoration. He said no one realized how badly disfigured the painting was until she rang town hall to say what she had done.
She claimed to have had the permission of the priest to carry out the job.
"(The) priest knew it! He did! How could you do something like that without permission? He knew it!"
The fate of the painting has made national news in Spain.
The fresco is of the genre known as "Ecce Homo" style ("Behold the Man"). But on Thursday some Twitter users were dubbing it "Ecce Mono" ("Behold the Monkey").
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
