Culture

The Restoration Of This 15th Century Lamb Painting Is So Painfully, Incredibly Haunted

I'm not saying that there's a human trapped in the Ghent Altarpiece Lamb... but I'm also not NOT saying that.

by Michelle Rennex  22 January 2020
Lamb Art Restoration Haunted Human Looking

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Terrible painting restorations are very easy way to bring some joy into a bleak, dark world.

I mean, it’s pretty hard to forget the horrifying but hilarious botched restoration of Ecco Homo, otherwise now lovingly known as Potato Jesus or Monkey Christ . Then there was the Spanish statue of San Jorge that was unfortunately transformed into a dollar-shop toy.

Well, the next piece of art that has been subject to the hands of unlucky repair is The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, better known as the Ghent Altarpiece. Understandably, the 15th century artwork isn’t in the greatest condition thanks to years of damage, dismantling and reassembly.

So a $2.4 million dollar restoration project for the artwork, created by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, took place. One of the twelve panels in the piece features the well-recognised scene of a lamb being sacrificed to God. But unfortunately for everyone, restoration specialists chipped away at the old, yellowed-paint to unveil the sacrificial lamb in it’s true form.

Under the placid-looking lamb was the strangely human-looking face originally painted by the Van Eyck brothers.

Unlike most botched restoration jobs, the horrifying update wasn’t painted onto the artwork. Instead, the demonic lamb was what the artists intended for their painting to look like. This means the original lamb was so terrifying that someone decided enough was enough and painted over the cursed animal sometime over the last 600 years.

To be fair, if I were a lady knocking about in the 1700’s and saw a lamb looking like that, I, too, would also paint over it. It’s hard to explain what’s wrong with the lamb, but a lot is. Mainly, the fact that the animal’s eyes point straight like a human is a quite bad. The Ghent Lamb seriously looks like a human trapped in a lamb body for eternity. Beyond this, if you look close enough at the lamb pre-restoration, you can see the evil lamb oddly-straight ears poking through the painting. Basically, there’s a lot wrong with this new-look Ghent Altarpiece.

Similarly, people online couldn’t contain their concern over the haunted lamb, expressing their fear over the unsettling creature. Beyond the creepiness of the animal, some believed that the lambs new look changed the entire meaning of the art piece.

While others were a fan of the new lamb, with some even expressing desire to be the haunted animal.

The Haunted Lamb Memes

In an attempt to laugh through the pain, people have started making Ghent Altarpiece Lamb memes to cope. While nothing can erase the human-lamb hybrid from our minds, we can only laugh and hope to forget.