Snubbed: Pope gives JD Vance just 17 seconds -- but has long meetings with other leaders

[Hekate]

40. I recognize that painting .... I believe it is about to go back to Ukraine...

I saw it restored on one of my nights watching the better bits of YouTube. Can’t recall the name of the program (of course) but the theme was to do specialty repairs of old and beloved objects — and incidentally preserve traditional skilled crafts in the young, a project of the former Prince of Wales, now King Charles. The people who do the show are of the older generation and very, very skilled indeed.

This painting was brought in by an elderly lady who along with her mother and sister had escaped Ukraine ahead of the Russian invasion by Stalin. It was a family heirloom — the mother had saved it from the church where her husband was a priest. She removed the frame, rolled it up, and stitched it into the lining of a coat. The lady who brought it in, one of the daughters, her greatest desire was to see it returned to Ukraine, but she didn’t know how that was to be done.

When brought to the program, it showed a lot of damage from its travels. With permission of the lady who owned it, the edges were preserved as-is, to show what kind of journey it had undergone, while the Madonna and Child in the center were fully restored.

I could be completely wrong — but I think that’s the one. And it’s going home.