The Borja Painting: Pennies from Heaven?

A small town story of a botched albeit well-meaning attempt to restore a small historic painting unexpectedly went viral back in 2012, inspiring an international flurry of memes, tweets, comedy sketches and even an opera. Today, over two years after the episode occurred, some 150,000 tourists have flocked to observe the painting, paying €1 a piece to check out the curious cultural phenomenon in person. 

Here’s a quick recap of the famous restore fail:

2012

A small 1930’s era fresco painting in a church in the small Spanish town of Borja (pop. 5,000) starts to peel. The painting features a rather lifelike image of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns and a burgundy tunic. In August, local resident and amateur painter Cecilia Giménez makes an unskilled attempt to restore the painting without permission, leaving a crude and decidedly un-photorealistic image in its place. The surprisingly unsatisfactory restoration, bungled beyond recognition, quickly becomes an internet sensation. Cecilia is lampooned and scorned to shame on the internet and in the media. The first tourists begin arriving to view the painting.

2013

Bodegas Ruberte announces new special edition wine “Cecilia Giménez”

2014

Two years after Cecilia’s intriguing restoration, 130,000 people had visited the painting, that’s some 2,000 per month. A full-fledged fiesta celebrating the 2^nd anniversary of the restoration is thrown in the sanctuary surrounding the church, which surrounds the painting. Cecilia announces that she’s “very happy, everyone supports me…”

A Blessing in Disguise

And so it seems that Cecilia Giménez, the seemingly naïve 80 something amateur restorer of fine arts has unwittingly generated incredible tourist interest in her work and in the town of Borja itself as the curious flock to the  previously off-the-radar destination. Amused visitors who’ve made the journey make their way into the church that houses the work where they anxiously await, on the verge of uncontrollable giggle attacks, their coveted first-person peeks at the undeniably funny restore. A strategically positioned donation container reminds observers that the town of Borja is silently laughing too; all the way to the bank.

It’s really impossible to know if Cecilia’s fantastically clumsy work was indeed a fantastic master stroke carefully designed to prompt the shower of “pennies from heaven” over the village. She insists that she made the repaint attempt “with very good intention” asking for forgiveness if she’s sinned by painting over the masterwork.

Conan O’Brian included a sketch about Cecilia’s restoration on his show. The New York Times published an article about the story last December.

Wikipedia lists the “Hedgehog-like figure of Jesus” renovation as one of the town’s main sights, along with a Baroque convent and an 18^th century temple. 

My first concern when I heard about the financial and popular success of the phenomenon was the possibility of copycat towns looking to cash in by artistically ruining their own historic pieces of art. I haven’t heard of that happening, but in an unrelated side note, it does kind of remind me of a 2011 story of the mayor of the Turkish town of Batman who announced plans to sue Warner Bros. for using the name of his town without permission, asserting that “there is only one batman in the world”.

A little soul searching and a curious question of values may float in the air for observers considering attempting to prompt their own shower of pennies from heaven: how valuable is art? For many, destroying a small and obscure piece of art may seem like a small price to pay in exchange for converting their town into a profitable tourist trap during difficult economic times. Who knows, maybe people have even tried but have failed to be successful with their purposely failed restoration attempts.

Another question the story raises is how we value art. Many professional painters who’ve dedicated their lives to mastering their craft dream of attracting the amount of people and generating the amount of excitement that Cecilia Gimenez’s unskilled restoration has.

 For now, as always, many people will continue dreaming of being successful, or dreaming up ways to be successful. Hopefully they’ll do it “with very good intention”.