Conservation Experts Call for Regulation After Botched Art Restoration in Spain

Conservation experts in Spain have called for tighter regulations regarding restoration work after a copy of the famous painting by Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was left damaged and disfigured in a botched repair.

A private art collector in Valencia paid €1,200 for the painting of the Immaculate Conception to be cleaned by a furniture restorer. However the job didn’t go as planned and despite two attempts to fix it, the face of the Virgin Mary has been left unrecognisable.

The incident has resulted in comparisons of other recent “restorations” in Spain, which include the infamous “Monkey Christ” paint job in 2012. In this case an elderly parishioner attempted to restore a fresco of Christ on the wall of a church near Zaragoza.

Last year a 16th century statue of Saint George in northern Spain was left resembling Tin Tin or a Playmobil figure after a failed restoration job. 

Currently in Spain there is no law forbidding people from restoring artwork without the necessary skills.

Fernando Carrera, a professor at the Galician School for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage told the Guardian that cases like these show the importance of having people who are properly trained to carry out restoration work like this.

“I don’t think this guy – or these people – should be referred to as restorers,” Carrera said. “Let’s be honest: they’re bodgers who botch things up. They destroy things.”

“We need to invest in our heritage, but even before we talk about money, we need to make sure that the people who undertake this kind of work have been trained in it,” he said. 

The country's Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators (Acre) released a statement calling the recent botched restoration an act of vandalism and saying the lack of regulations shows a lack of care for protecting the country’s heritage.

"In recent years, conservation-restoration professionals have been forced to emigrate or leave their professions due to a lack of opportunities,” it said.

One of Acre’s vice-presidents, María Borja, said incidents such as the Murillo mishap were “unfortunately far more common than you might think”. 

The recent “restoration” has become the subject of a number of Twitter memes and jokes.