LONDON — A 16th-century wooden statue of St. George, venerated as a Christian martyr who killed a dragon to rescue a Libyan king’s daughter, has been unrestored in Spain to all its slightly faded glory after a botched paint job turned it into something resembling the cartoon character Tintin.

The statue’s paint had begun to crack in the small church of St. Michael’s in the village of Estella when a zealous local company set out to restore it last year. The project made headlines around the world when the refurbished statue was unveiled: It had bright, loud colors, including a pink face, and its original shades and traits had been erased.

The botched project was another in a line of art restoration projects gone bad, such as the 2012 defacing of a century-old “Ecce Homo” fresco of Jesus with a crown of thorns that was altered beyond recognition in Spain, leaving the statue with a half-beard and, some say, a monkeylike appearance; and the 2016 restoration of a landmark Spanish castle that made it more closely resemble a multilevel parking garage.