Jesus, Mary and Joseph that's bad restoration!

We have another antique artwork “restored” by a complete nitwit here.

And the Taliban just blow their shit up. I’m not sure which is worse.

I’m going with the Taliban here.

Eh, at least it’s just a crappy paint job. In a hundred years it’ll wear off and we can try again.

It did remind me of the garishly painted reproductions of polychromed Greek and Roman statuary and architecture. Yeah, the Ancient Greeks didn’t keep their statues white, they painted them purty like Mexican folk art.

I’d be hiring someone to remove the paint immediately, and ordering a couple of hundred really nice paint-by-numbers sets for the painter. Those plus a restraining order. :slight_smile:

I’m not sure it’s fair to call it a bad restoration unless there’s evidence of what it looked like originally. Better to say the restoration doesn’t meet modern expectations.

Side-by-side before/after photos were given.

Is there not a picture of before and after there? I see two photos. I have to say, there’s something about the garish colors in the restoration that actually appeals to me. But I sure as shit wouldn’t do that with a historical piece of art.

Yes, before and after, but not an original–how it looked when it was first created.

Likewise. The colors aren’t unpleasant, and on anything else I think they’d be quite nice.

Perhaps there ought to be guidelines for this sort of thing, if they’re going to hire any Tom, Dick or Mary to do the job instead of a professional restorer? (I assume there is such a profession?)

The way little Jesus has his hand out there, it seems like someone should put a bunch of balloons on a string into his hand.

Fuck, I’da Chromed it!

I know varnish comes in different colors, but this is ridiculous! :stuck_out_tongue:

I would assume it was very much like the unpainted one, unless I’m not understanding your point.

A better article here.

The previous professional restorer says

It’s a travesty.

Yes, but those were usually works by competent artists who seem to have known what they were doing, based on reconstructions.

If I was gonna be religious that would be my favorite statue at church. I would go every Sunday and I would tithe. Yes , I would.

The person who did this wasn’t a nitwit. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it was a carefully considered, completely intentional, and rather cynical attempt to attract attention.

The town of the original botched restoration benefited from a massive rise in tourism after it gained worldwide notoriety.

Sure we can. The painter admitted she just used colors she liked, meaning she wasn’t even trying to make it look like the original. That makes it a bad restoration job, no matter how close it looks to the original.

Are you sure those are the same statues? The faces of the “restored” figures on the right look much longer than those on the left. That could be down to camera lens effects I suppose, but I’m suspicious.