The woman who restored a painting of Christ so poorly that it became first a meme, then a tourist attraction, has died

In 2012, the then 81-year-old Cecilia Giménez transformed Borja’s “Ecce Homo” into Potato Jesus, becoming one of the most beloved meme stars of all time.

She’s dead Cecilia Gimenez, Spanish, amateur painter and self-taught restorer who became famous throughout the world for the disastrous restoration of an icon of Jesus in the church of Borjain Aragon. The news was reported by the BBC, which relaunched what was communicated by the parish priest of the local diocese, where Giménez was a very active faithful parishioner. “She was a simple, good person and deeply attached to the church” said the priest, remembering her as someone who “always acted in good faith”. Giménez had 94 years old and died in a retirement home.

Giménez became a celebrity in spite of herself in 2012, when the clumsy restoration work on a small nineteenth-century fresco depicting Christ, known as Behold the Man and created by Elías García Martínez, ended up at the center of international news. Always passionate about painting, the then 81-year-old Giménez decided to revive the image – a suffering face of Jesus enclosed in a parchment-shaped pictorial frame – which was in poor condition. After asking permission from the parish priest, he worked on the project for days while the church remained open to the faithful. The intervention, although animated by good intentions, however, he transformed the original image into an unrecognizable figure. As soon as the photo of the restored work arrived online, it immediately became one of the most loved and used memetic bases. It wasn’t easy to decide on the name, however. At the beginning there were those who wanted this to underline the “ape-like” traits that Giménez had inflicted on poor Christ, but placing the word monkey alongside the name of Jesus seems sacrilegious to many. In the end, a compromise was found and the meme was named Potato Jesus, name with which he was also included in the meme encyclopedia, Know Your Meme.

The woman, one of the first “unknowns” to become a global celebrity despite herself thanks to the meme phenomenon, suffered the backlash of global derision, but found support in the local community. Over time, what was perceived as a disaster has instead become an unexpected economic resource for the community of Borja: the restored fresco still attracts thousands of visitors and generates significant tourist revenue. In an ironic ending, the work is now protected by a glass plate to preserve it over time.