Recently, the 80-year-old Cecilia Giménez stepped forward as the person who had disfigured a 19th-Century "ecco homo" fresco by Elías García Martínez in Spain. The story, essentially, boils down to the local authorities of Borja [near Zaragoza, Spain] stating that while they "had suspected vandalism at first," they "then determined that the shocking alterations had been made by an elderly parishioner" named Ceclila Giménez. Below are three pictures of the fresco in quesion: how it originally appeared (left), the state of deteriation it was in (middle) and Giménez's botched restoration attempt (right).

While "the Borja authorities said they were now considering taking legal action against Ms. Giménez" (emphasis mine), "they insisted that their priority was to try to return the work to its original state." Needless to say, this case of vandalism being 'forgiven' due to the intent — to restore a piece of art, though it actually destroyed it — caught the attention of UK street artist Banksy, who frequently creates art that is called vandalism; thus Banksy decided to create his own tribute to this occurrence…

The Banksy image is courtesy of Urban-Muse.com's Facebook page, wherein they confirm that the above is by Banksy. Other information, quotes and images are courtesy of the NYTimes website.