How many paintings, how many paintings will need to be disfigured, how many pieces ruined before the authorities intervene ? Art lovers, spaniards are fed up. Fed up to see their heritage ridiculed, become the laughing stock of the Internet, and be deprived forever of his glory. The scourge that is ravaging in recent years some works often very valuable hand yet a good feeling : the restoration. But, obviously, there is no need to be an expert to tackle in Spain to an old table.
for instance, a private collector residing in Valencia, according to the Guardian, paid 1,200 euros for a restorer restores vigor to one of his paintings, an Immaculate Conception signed Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, the famous painter of Spanish baroque of the Seventeenth century. He will find his canvas, disfigured, irretrievable. The collector would have been able to know of the risk, the restaurateur in question, being a specialist in old furniture and mirrors. The collector has then attempted to turn into a real specialist, without success : the face is still unrecognizable.
the legacy of The “Christ-monkey”
This treasury of Spanish painting now joins the long list of works of art to victims of restorations unscrupulous. The most famous being probably the one inflicted to the Ecce Homo, a canvas Elias Garcia Martinez end XIXᵉ in the church of the Sanctuary of mercy of Borja, now more known under the name of ” Christ monkey “. Carried out by an amateur who has, it seems, lost control at the time of the attack to the face, this restoration symbolically missed was the first signal of alarm.
According to Fernando Carrera, a professor at the school of conservation and restoration of the heritage of Galicia and former president of the Spanish association of conservators and curators (ACRE), the law allows anyone to undertake projects of restoration of works, even when they have no technical competence. The price are without doubt more advantageous and manage to convince some collectors. “Could you imagine anyone to be allowed to operate on someone ? Where as someone who has nothing to do with an architect is allowed to build a building ? ” marvelled he with the Guardian.
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as the failures of this kind, reported to the ACRE, are much more common than we imagine. “We need to attract the attention of the society to choose representatives who will register the assets in their program, believes the professor. This does not necessarily have to be the priority, this did not reach the importance of health or employment, but it is our history. “
