An elderly woman's catastrophic attempt to restore a century-old oil painting of Christ in a Spanish church has provoked popular uproar, and amusement. The well-intentioned but ham-fisted amateur artist, in her 80s, took it upon herself to patch up the original work, which depicted Christ crowned with thorns. Her "restored" figure has a monkey-like face, cartoon-style nose and a crooked smudge for a mouth. Titled Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), the original was painted in just two hours in 1910 directly on a column in the church at Borja, northeastern Spain. Over the years, humidity in the Iglesia del Santuario de Misericordia gradually ate away patches of paint. But the new version has become a national joke, reminiscent of the film character Mr Bean's comic attempt to restore Whistler's Mother after he sneezes on it and mistakenly wipes off the face. A team of art restoration experts will evaluate the damage to see if the work can be restored to its original state. Photo: AFP