--- title: Botched Jesus Restoration Draws Tourists for Spanish Town description: Years after a restoration of a religious painting exploded to viral fame, it's still drawing tourism dollars to a small Spanish town. canonical: https://time.com/5490009/botched-jesus-restoration-tourist-attraction-spain/ author: Alejandro de la Garza article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-28T21:11:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:56:38.748Z og:title: That Botched Jesus Restoration Is Massive Tourist Attraction for Small Spanish Town og:description: The artistic atrocity is still generating tourism revenue for Borja, Spain og:url: https://time.com/5490009/botched-jesus-restoration-tourist-attraction-spain/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafebe7d810064404/6989426297cdff7c256b711b/monkey-christ-ecce-homo.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1468 og:image:height: 826 og:image:alt: monkey-christ-ecce-homo og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: That Botched Jesus Restoration Is Massive Tourist Attraction for Small Spanish Town twitter:description: The artistic atrocity is still generating tourism revenue for Borja, Spain twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafebe7d810064404/6989426297cdff7c256b711b/monkey-christ-ecce-homo.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # That Botched Jesus Restoration Is a Massive Tourist Attraction for a Small Spanish Town > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=55245f96-5560-436d-8513-39cee662d0c6&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Dec 28, 2018 9:11 PM UTC  View of the deteriorated version of 'Ecce Homo' mural by 19th century painter Elias Garcia Martinez, right, next to a copy of the original, left, at the Borja Church in Zaragoza, Spain. View of the deteriorated version of 'Ecce Homo' mural by 19th century painter Elias Garcia Martinez, right, next to a copy of the original, left, at the Borja Church in Zaragoza, Spain. Javier Vinuela—AP/REX/Shutterstock  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Dec 28, 2018 9:11 PM UTC Years after a botched restoration of a religious painting exploded to viral fame, the artistic atrocity known as “Monkey Christ” is still drawing visitors — and tourism dollars — to a small Spanish town. The story starts back in 2012, when parishioner Cecilia Giménez of the Santuario de Misericordia outside Borja, Spain decided to restore a nearly century-old painting of Jesus Christ on the wall of her church, [according to _The Guardian_](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/28/how-monkey-christ-brought-new-life-to-a-quiet-spanish-town). Her efforts were only partly finished when she left town on a trip, but pictures of her work were uploaded to the internet where they quickly went viral. Soon, the painting was mocked around the world, and came to be known as Potato Jesus or Monkey Christ. Now, years later, the clumsy restoration has proved to be a reliable tourist attraction for the area. Today, Borja receives 16,000 visitors a year, according to _The Guardian_. That’s more than four times the annual number that came before Giménez’s well-intentioned artistic disaster. The revenue generated by those meme-savvy tourists helps fund Borja’s home for the elderly, as well as maintain employment for the Santuario de Misericordia’s two caretakers, per _The Guardian_. For the residents of Borja, the attention generated by the Potato Jesus certainly had an economic upside. “It was a media phenomenon, but it’s also been a social phenomenon when it comes to helping people,” Borja’s mayor, Eduardo Arilla, told the news outlet. “If it hadn’t happened, maybe Borja would have become famous for something else, like its wine. 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