spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

Spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today Spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco

Madrid - AFP

An 82-year-old Spanish woman whose botched restoration of a painting of Christ made her a global laughing stock is to reap nearly half the riches from worldwide merchandising of the monkey-like image. Cecilia Gimenez took it upon herself a year ago to fix up Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), a flaking, century-old fresco of Christ painted on a pillar in a church in Borja, northeastern Spain. The touched-up result resembled a pale-faced ape with cartoon-style eyes and mouth and a crooked smudge for a mouth; so bad it became an instant Internet hit, imitated and pilloried around the world. In the past year, some 57,000 people have descended on the church, Santuario de Misericordia, to be photographed with the artistic disaster, according to a charitable foundation running the church. The church foundation, owned by Borja town hall, started charging one euro ($1.40) for each visitor to help pay for the upkeep of the painting and to finance its charitable work. But the big money could come from selling the rights to use the image on anything from bottles of wine to coffee mugs and T-shirts. Under a deal being signed Wednesday, Gimenez gets 49 percent of the profit from marketing of the image with the rest going to the foundation, Borja deputy mayor and cultural chief Juan Maria Ojeda told AFP. No longer mocked, the elderly artist has just held a well-received exhibition of her own paintings in Borja but has no wish to get rich herself, said her lawyer, Antonio Val-Carreres. "All the profits will go for charitable uses by the foundation and by Cecilia," he told AFP. "That's very important. It should be made clear that no-one wants to make money out of this situation." Already, several international companies had shown interest in using the infamous image, he said, declining to identify them before an agreement was reached. For the woman renowned as perhaps the world's worst art restorer, it is a dramatic change in fortune. "Everyone seems to be happy now," she told the local paper, Heraldo de Aragon. Not everyone, in fact. Descendants of Elias Garcia Martinez, the artist who painted the work just over a century ago, are upset that the disfigured painting will remain intact instead of being returned to its original state. "That is the main disagreement," said deputy mayor Ojeda, who had met recently with one of the family members. "Some of them want a restoration which is probably impossible now and some are just asking for it to be removed from where it is and put somewhere else," Ojeda added. Both the town hall and Gimenez's lawyers said they were ready to extend the image rights contract to the original artist's descendants if they had a change of heart.  

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco spanish artist to share riches from botched fresco

 



GMT 10:06 2012 Saturday ,28 July

Querrey advances at ATP LA Open

GMT 21:15 2017 Thursday ,01 June

Trump condemns deadly Kabul explosion

GMT 02:15 2017 Thursday ,24 August

Is your country on the Qatar free entry list of 80?

GMT 19:48 2016 Monday ,03 October

Controversial boxing champ Tyson Fury retires

GMT 08:20 2015 Tuesday ,08 December

PC market woes show no sign of easing

GMT 17:27 2017 Tuesday ,25 April

20 Yemeni soldiers killed, injured in explosion

GMT 11:52 2017 Saturday ,30 December

OIC condemns Mar Mina Church attack

GMT 00:03 2017 Saturday ,25 March

Arab Meeting to Examine Anti-Corruption Methods

GMT 13:12 2017 Thursday ,20 April

Deputy premier meets Arab League chief

GMT 14:13 2014 Friday ,10 January

Opel Astra GTC

GMT 18:27 2016 Tuesday ,02 August

Turkish Foreign Minister arrives in Islamabad

GMT 11:27 2016 Tuesday ,13 December

Saudi woman arrested for challenging social norms
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday