How to Ruin a Statue in One Easy Step (Hint: Don’t Be an Artist)

The smile of a century-old stone woman in Spain vanished beneath amateur hands, leaving behind a face so bizarrely transformed that tourists now flock just to verify it’s not a hoax.

Palencia, Spain has a new resident – one with peculiar features that 78,000 locals never voted for.

A 1923 statue of a smiling woman, once embedded in a local bank’s stonework, now bears a face that defies logic. Two asymmetrical dots float where eyes should anchor, a formless protrusion substitutes for a nose, and an oblong cavity serves as a mouth. The transformation came not from weather or time, but from human hands commissioned to “restore” the broken sculpture.

“It looks like the head of a cartoon character,” remarked local artist Antonio Guzmán Capel, whose photographs unleashed an avalanche of attention. Now, at 9 Calle Mayor, pedestrians pause daily, conversations halting mid-sentence as they process what they’re seeing.

Who sculpted this new interpretation? Nobody knows. The amateur restorers remain unnamed, their credentials as mysterious as their understanding of facial proportions.

Spain’s Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators (ACRE) didn’t mince words: “THIS #IsNotARestoration. It’s a NON-professional intervention.”

Spanish art has suffered similar fates before. In Borja, 2012 saw Cecilia Jimenez, an 81-year-old parishioner, reinterpret a 19th-century fresco of Jesus. The result? A figure so unusual it earned the moniker “Monkey Christ” – a simplified, blurry rendition bearing little connection to the original.

Spain’s artistic heritage continued its transformation when unknown hands attacked a 15th-century wooden sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, and St. Anne. The natural wood tones vanished beneath electric greens and synthetic pinks – colors never conceived during the Renaissance.

These incidents form an expanding catalog throughout Spain, prompting ACRE president Maria Borjas to observe, “Spain’s cultural heritage is in a fairly vulnerable situation.” What masterpiece might face unauthorized reinterpretation next remains an open question.

The Palencia statue hovers in uncertainty – its current iteration perhaps temporary, perhaps permanent. No announcements have been made regarding further restoration attempts.

Curiously, Borja’s notorious “Monkey Christ” reframed the town’s economy. Tourism surged as visitors arrived specifically to witness the unusual creation – proving that artistic mishaps sometimes yield unexpected dividends.

The altered face in Palencia persists, staring out with its impossible features – a stark illustration of what unfolds when preservation work proceeds without proper expertise or oversight.

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Cover Photo: Facebook

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