maybe he was hiding out in jersey?

"In 1949, five years after its disappearance from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a small, fourteenth century wood panel of Saint Thomas attributed to the workshop of the Sienese painter Simone Martini was returned.  The thief either was unable to dispose of it, grew tired of it, or became remorseful.  He wrapped it in a few layers of tissue covered by brown paper and mailed it back, with the museum's address in block letters and a fictitious return address."

Excerpted from The Art Stealers, Milton Esterow (Macmillan Publishing, 1973)

Pictured:  Saint Thomas -- Simone Martini, circa 1317–19, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Workshop of Simone Martini (Italian, Siena, active by 1315–died 1344 Avignon)
Date: ca. 1317–19
- See more at: http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=simone+martini&x=0&y=0&rpp=10&pg=1#sthash.9TuDaYTu.dpuf

Workshop of Simone Martini (Italian, Siena, active by 1315–died 1344 Avignon)
Date: ca. 1317–19
- See more at: http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=simone+martini&x=0&y=0&rpp=10&pg=1#sthash.9TuDaYTu.dpuf

Workshop of Simone Martini (Italian, Siena, active by 1315–died 1344 Avignon)
Date: ca. 1317–19
- See more at: http://www.metmuseum.org/search-results?ft=simone+martini&x=0&y=0&rpp=10&pg=1#sthash.ogW9pOlw.dpuf

painting of the month

Young Woman Drawing -- Marie-Denise Villers, 1801 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

reverently creative

If you're going to be in the NYC area anytime from mid-February through May 26th, Manhattan's Museum of Biblical Art is featuring "Ashe to Amen:  African-Americans and Biblical Imagery."  The exhibit includes works of inspiration by such fine artists as Romare Bearden, Clementine Hunter, Henry Ossawa Tanner and the pictured Holy Mountain III by Horace Pippin, one of Pippin's deeply spiritual visions on canvas finished shortly before his death in 1946.  

I will preach with my brush.  -- Henry Ossawa Tanner 

Pictures just come to my mind...and I tell my heart to go ahead.-- Horace Pippin

Pictured:  Holy Mountain III -- Horace Pippin, 1945 (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Permanent Collection)