A grandmother's less-than-artistic attempt to restore a century-old church fresco has turned into an unlikely art sensation, with thousands of people signing an online petition to save her questionable handiwork. Eighty-one-year-old Cecilia Gimenez noticed that an oil painting of Jesus Christ on the wall of her local church near Zaragoza, in north-eastern Spain, was deteriorating and decided to take it upon herself to fix the 120-year-old fresco.

The problem is that now she has meddled with the head and, clearly, she has destroyed the painting. But the pensioner's shocking DIY restoration job left Jesus, who was wearing a crown of thorns and gazing sorrowfully towards heaven, looking more like a pale monkey with a half beard. Some have labelled it the worst art restoration of all time, while the BBC described the end result as looking like "a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic".

Gimenez insists she had permission from the priest to touch up the painting, entitled Ecce Homo (Behold The Man) and painted by Elias Garcia Martinez. Spanish jokesters have renamed the fresco Ecce Mono (Behold the Monkey). But Gimenez says she hasn't finished yet. "We have always repaired everything ourselves here. The priest knew about it. Of course he did," she told Spanish television.

Parodies of the botched restoration have emerged on the internet.

Source: Megan Levy Sydney Morning Herald.