An art and craft teacher's restoration of a 16th century wooden statue of St. George in a Spanish church has been ridiculed by the town's mayor as it has gone viral around the world.The polychrome effigy of St. George, the patron saint of England and other nations, received a significant make-over at the Church of St. Michael in the town of Estella, in the autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain, but instead of praise has earned much ridicule, Christianpost.com wrote.
The church hired a teacher to freshen up the 500-year-old statue, but the result left the Roman soldier with a rosy pink face and a red-and-grey suit of armor, with observers around the world, including Estella's own mayor, criticizing the new look.
"The parish decided on its own to take action to restore the statue and gave the job to a local handicraft teacher. The council wasn't told and neither was the regional government of Navarre," mayor Koldo Leoz said.
Explaining his objections, Leoz continued: "It's not been the kind of restoration that it should have been for this 16thcentury statue. They've used plaster and the wrong kind of paint and it's possible that the original layers of paint have been lost."
The mayor revealed that experts have been summoned to determine whether it is possible for the restoration work to be undone.
Botched restorations of church paintings and statues have gone viral on a number of occasions throughout the world, perhaps none more famous than the fresco restoration of Jesus Christ in the northern Spanish town of Borja. The original painting of "Ecce Homo" (Behold the Man) at the Sanctuary of Mercy Church was transformed into a bloated, nearly unrecognizable version by an artist in 2012.
The interest around the botched restoration proved highly profitable for Borja, however, which for years later saw a boom in hundreds of thousands of visitors who came to the church to see the painting, even sparking merchandise, such as T-shirts and teacups.
