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Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

This combination of two undated handout photos made available by the Centro de estudios Borjanos shows the 20th century Ecce Homo-style fresco of Christ before (left) and after (right) an elderly amateur artist Celia Gimenez, 80, took it upon herself to restore it in the church of the northern Spanish agricultural town of Borja. (AP Photo/Centro de estudios Borjanos)

A small Spanish town is trying to figure out what to do with a 20th-century painting of Christ that has been disfigured by a local artist who was trying to restore it.

Juan Maria Ojeda, an official in Borja town, said 80-year-old Celia Gimenez decided to touch up the fresco of Christ wearing a crown of thorns in the Misericordia church.

He said no one realized how badly disfigured the painting was until she rang town hall to say what she had done.

The fate of the painting, completed in 1930, has made national news in Spain.

The fresco is of the genre known as "Ecce Homo" style ("Behold the Man"). But on Thursday some Twitter users were dubbing it "Ecce Mono" ("Behold the Monkey").