When you think of art that has been ruined the first thing that usually comes to mind is that image of Jesus that turned out looking very monkey-fied. You know the one I’m talking about. This one..
Now thanks to a collector hiring a furniture restorer instead of an artist specializing in this kind of work another work of art has been damaged irreparably. Immaculate Conception — by Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo has been ruined… The art collector who had it in his collection paid the furniture restorer $1,355 dollars to try and restore the painting which originally looked like this.
Then like this..
And then this…
I guess you get what you pay for. Usually for a small image with minor flaws you would pay about what this collector paid. $800 – $1,500. But for larger paintings with more work to be done, like lifting the vibrancy in general you would pay from $10,000 to  $15,000. It sounds like they wanted to cheap out of hiring a professional and they paid dearly for it in the end. Unfortunately so did everyone else because this is now a lost cause.
