Spanish conservationists irked by latest botched restoration

MADRID – Spanish conservationists are outraged over what they say is yet another botched restoration of a historic work of art.

The latest amateur effort to earn the disapproval of the Spanish Association of Conservator-Restorers is the restoration of a church’s 16th-century wooden sculpture of a knight on horseback.

The figure at the San Miguel de Estella church in the northern Navarra province was recently repainted in gaudy colours by a local craftsman, instead of being properly cleaned by a professional conservationist.

The national restorers’ association’s president, Fernando Carrera, says Wednesday the sculpture “has been turned into a toy.”

The association’s website lists other “well-intentioned mistakes,” including a fresco restoration in 2012 that went viral after it transformed a century-old depiction of Christ into an image resembling a monkey.