Salvator Mono - Savior of All Primates

By tych0_21 | Digital Restorations | 12 Mar 2021

This one is... a bit different. Instead of picking one piece to recreate, I made a piece that is based on combining two separate depictions of Jesus Christ: Salvator Mundi - (School of?) Leonardo da Vinci; and Ecce Homo - Elias Garcia Martinez ("Restored" by Cecilia Giménez).

The first piece is the Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World). The Salvator Mundi is world-famous for being the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction. On November 15, 2017, the piece was sold at a price of $450.3 million at Christie's Auction House in New York City to Price Badr bin Abdullah, presumably on behalf of the Saudi Crown Price Mohammed bin Salman. Though verified by some experts, and heavily marketed by others, as a long-lost original of the Renaissance master, Leonardo da Vinci, it has since come under scrutiny to many art historians and experts who have concluded that it is far more likely that the piece was a study/exercise piece undertaken by one or more of Leonardo's students rather than the master himself. Since its purchase, the painting has disappeared from public view.

The second piece is Ecce Homo (Behold the Man). Ecce Homo is (or was) a small fresco painted by Elias Garcia Martinez on the inside of the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borgia, Spain in 1930. While initially considered of little artistic significance, the work gained new life via a 2012 restoration by one faithful church patron: local artist and octogenarian, Ms. Cecilia Giménez. Over the years of her attendance to the church, she had watched the fresco steadily fade from the wall as it succumb to the progressive wear of time and ill conservation. In an effort to bring the piece back to its former glory, Ms. Giménez took it upon herself to touch up the fresco where it had begun to flake. Despite her good intentions, she may have been a bit overzealous in her work. Rather than simply touch up the flaking sections of the fresco, Ms. Giménez succeeded in creating a muddy and distorted rendition of Christ that was received by the townspeople with equal horror and hilarity. For who found humor in the blunder, they affectionately dubbed the restored work Ecce Mono (Behold the Monkey).

As news of the botched restoration spread across the globe, Ms. Giménez underwent undeserved harassment for "ruining" what was, to begin with, a relatively insignificant piece of Spanish artwork. To her credit however, she has always stood by her work, stating that the only reason that the piece looks as it does is that she hadn't finished yet. With more time, she remains confident that she would have returned the work to its original form; experts are less confident in her abilities. Despite this, Ecce Mono has been a resounding success for the church and surrounding community. Tourism to the town driven by those wishing to see the fresco have increased annual visitor numbers by at least tenfold as of 2016 as well as helping to raise over €50,000 in donations to the church housing the "restored" work.

I hope you enjoy my mash-up of these two pieces!

Salvator Mono:

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