No Monkey Business: Woman Behind Botched Fresco Restoration Sells Painting on eBay

Associated Press “Borja's Wine Cellar,” an oil painting by Celia Giménez.

You may not appreciate the handiwork of Celia Giménez, the 80-year-old woman whose unauthorized restoration of a religious fresco turned the face of Jesus into something resembling, say, a monkey in a shearling coat. But like it or not, she is now a professional artist: The Associated Press reported that an original painting by Ms. Giménez, depicting only a rustic scene and no holy figures or primates, had been sold on eBay for about $1,400.

The online auction for Ms. Giménez's original oil painting, titled “Las Bodegas de Borja” (“Borja's Wine Cellar”) closed on Tuesday after 52 bids, and proceeds from the sale will be donated to Caritas, a Catholic charity. The amount raised is perhaps a modest sum when compared to the invaluable amount of Internet content Ms. Giménez generated this summer when it was discovered that she had tried to restore a century-old fresco at a church in the Spanish town of Borja. The original image, which showed Jesus wearing a crown of thorns before the crucifixion, was commonly known as “Ecce Homo,” or “Behold the Man”; after Ms. Giménez was done with it, it gained a new nickname: “Ecce Mono,” or “Behold the Monkey.”