"Fluffy Jesus" and 8 more fatal mistakes of restorers

The task of restorers is to restore dilapidated and damaged works of art. It will not be possible to simply cover up or paint, otherwise the masterpiece will be spoiled. But sometimes the case is taken by would-be professionals, after which either you have to redo everything, or nothing can be saved. At the sight of such a work, art connoisseurs open a bottle with valerian. 

"Fluffy Jesus"

The most sensational case of unsuccessful restoration occurred in Spain. 80-year-old Cecilia Jimenez volunteered to restore the fresco depicting Jesus that decorated the Church of Mercy in the city of Borja. But for some reason, it turned out completely different from the original. Perhaps the elderly woman's eyesight failed her. The resulting picture was called "Fluffy Jesus".

You can endlessly argue about whether Cecilia is guilty or not. On the one hand, the mural was damaged. But on the other hand, the temple has become famous all over the world, and Cecilia is now called the new one Goya.

The heroes of the frescoes were deprived of their eyes

The restoration of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel was the most extensive restoration work of the XX century. But many art historians believe that its result is not the most successful.

When the masters cleaned the soot, they touched the top layer of frescoes with corrections by Michelangelo himself. As a result, some of the heroes of the frescoes lost their eyes.

Berlusconi's whims

In 2010, workers installed statues of Mars and Venus in front of the residence of Silvio Berlusconi. But the statues were found with missing body parts. And Berlusconi ordered them to be restored. Everything turned out quite well, but art critics did not appreciate the Prime Minister's impulse. It is believed that the "correction" of ancient sculptures is akin to vandalism, because we do not know how the statues looked originally. After this criticism, Mars and Venus were returned to their original state.

Clarified the picture

The painting "Saint Anna with the Madonna and the Christ Child" by Leonardo da Vinci was restored and turned out to be much brighter and lighter. If earlier dark shades prevailed in the picture, then after the restoration the picture became brighter, as if the action takes place on a sunny day. According to experts, this contradicts Da Vinci's vision. Some of the experts of the Louvre's advisory committee even stopped working in protest against such a restoration.

The unrecognizable Lenin

Every Russian city has a statue of Lenin. And in the Krasnodar Territory, one of the statues was unlucky: after the restoration, Lenin received a disproportionately long arm and a strange face. It turns out that the monument stood in this form for a long time, until in 2016 photos of this "obscenity" were distributed. This story even appeared on central television, after which the leader of the world proletariat was remade.

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is the largest architectural monument. Unfortunately, it is slowly being destroyed.

A few years ago, restorers unsuccessfully reconstructed one of the most beautiful sections of the wall with a length of 780 meters, simply covering it with concrete. The case is currently being investigated, and the restoration of the rest of the wall will be treated more carefully.

Matrera Castle

The reconstruction of the ancient fortress of Matrera in Spain turned out to be very controversial: the tower began to look too modern. It turned out that the restorer Carlos Quevado wanted to show which part of the fortress is new and which is ancient. By the way, Architizer, an authoritative community of architects, took the side of Quevado. But the locals are still unhappy.

Tutankhamun's Beard

In 2014, an employee of the Cairo Museum dropped a 10-kilogram golden mask of Tutankhamun, and the beard fell off from the relic. Instead of going to professionals, the woman turned to her husband, a restorer.

He glued the beard with superglue. And even at the wrong angle. In addition, he smeared Tutankhamun's chin with glue, decided to scrape it off and scratched the mask. Fortunately, it was recently restored properly.

A baby with someone else's head

The sculpture of the Madonna and Child Jesus in the Canadian city of Sudbury once suffered at the hands of vandals: the baby's head was chipped off and stolen.

Artist Heather Wise volunteered to fix the situation. But the result of her work looked more than strange and caused discontent among local residents. The head of the sculpture has a strong resemblance to the youngest character of the Simpsons — Maggie.

But in the end, Heather's actions played a positive role in this story: the person who stole the real head was confused (apparently by Heather's work) and returned it. The sculpture was restored.

It is worth noting that cases of unsuccessful restoration of works of art are rare. To date, thanks to the painstaking work of restorers, countless works of masters of the past have been preserved. One good example is this sculpture of an angel on St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.