> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A legend has died 😔 - URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/umerla-legenda/ - Published: 2025-12-30T17:05:18.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T05:27:31.000Z - Author: Alexandr Radayev - Tags: Faith, Art, Museums, Heritage, People, Humour Cecilia GimĂ©nez Zueco has died at the age of 94\. She became famous in 2012 for her amateur restoration of the fresco Ecce Homo, painted in 1930 by ElĂ­as GarcĂ­a MartĂ­nez. When a fresco in the Sanctuary of Mercy in the small Spanish town of Borja, in the province of Zaragoza, needed restoring, a local granny volunteered, describing herself as an artist. The result of her labours plunged people into horror on the one hand, and on the other made a celebrity of an obscure work of art and a forgotten provincial backwater. In the end the woman became a world-famous figure thanks to an absence of talent and the best of intentions. The bestial visage of Christ grew so notorious that Borja founded a museum devoted to the unsuccessfully restored fresco. The town itself found its way into many guidebooks and became a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of tourists. Considering that a fee of one euro was introduced for viewing the masterpiece, GimĂ©nez should more properly be called not a clumsy amateur but a thriving contemporary artist, all the more so as she brought her native town unprecedented fame and a considerable economic windfall. The grateful townspeople established an International Arts Competition in her honour.