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The Spanish parishioner who achieved global fame for her poorly executed repair job on a valuable religious painting has died at the age 94.

Cecilia Giménez, a resident of the town of Borja in northern Spain, became a global sensation thirteen years ago after she attempted to restore a 100-year-old fresco known as Ecce Homo located in her local church.

Giménez's handiwork quickly went viral and earned the moniker "Potato Jesus", because the resulting depiction of Christ's head bearing a resemblance to a furry primate.

Official Announcement and Tribute

The nonagenarian's death was confirmed by the town's mayor, Eduardo Arilla, in a social media post, where he described her as a "passionate enthusiast of painting from a very early age".

"Descansa en paz Cecilia, your memory will live on with us," Arilla wrote.

Arilla also paid tribute to Giménez's "now-legendary restoration of Ecce Homo" in the summer of 2012, which "because of the poor state of conservation it was in, Cecilia, acting in good faith, decided to apply new paint over the original".

The Artwork's History and the Now-Infamous Act

The Ecce Homo ("Behold the Man" in Latin) painted by 19th century artist Elias Garcia Martinez had been held for more than a century in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza.

At the time, Giménez, then 81, stated that church members had "always repaired everything here", and that she had been given the go-ahead from the local priest to do the work.

She also noted that anyone who came into the church would have seen she was applying paint to the existing artwork.

An Unexpected Tourist Boom

The aftermath of the restoration spawned the "Ecce Mono" meme and transformed the previously sleepy town of Borja quickly become a significant tourist destination.

The municipality, which had in the past welcomed just five thousand tourists per year, received more than 40,000 tourists by 2013, and managed to raise more than €50,000 for charity from the interest.

Currently, officials estimate that somewhere around 15,000 and 20,000 tourists travel to Borja each year to view the famous portrait, which is now protected by a pane of glass.

Later Life and Local Support

After recovering from the initial backlash, with support from the townspeople and well-wishers around the world, Giménez went on to hold an exhibition of her paintings featuring twenty-eight of her own paintings.

She was praised by Borja's mayor for her kind-hearted nature and decades of faithful service to the church.

Ultimately, what began as a sincere but unsuccessful act of restoration created an unlikely cultural icon and provided unprecedented tourist revenue to a humble Spanish town.