It's life imitating Mr. Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie , where the hapless hero unwittingly destroyed Whistler's Mother. Here's the story of how a woman decided to "restore" a deteriorated fresco in Spain:
LinkEcce Homo (Behold the Man) by Elias Garcia Martinez has held pride of place in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for more than 100 years.
The woman took her brush to it after years of deterioration due to moisture. [...]
The woman, in her 80s, was reportedly upset at the way the fresco had deteriorated and took it on herself to "restore" the image.
BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint.
The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.
http://www.change.org/es/peticiones/ayuntamiento-de-borja-zaragoza-mantenimiento-de-la-nueva-versi%C3%B3n-del-ecce-homo-de-borja
Nobody knew about the old one until this lovely grandma drew a monkey over it.
When all is art, nothing is art.