A beautiful mural of Our Lady and the Holy Spirit is being painted on the side of St. Mary’s Church in the town of New England in North Dakota. Hail Mary! Deo Gratias!

“Without Dotun, the dream of painting this would have been impossible,” Biju Chitteth, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church said. Dotun Popoola has been working on this painting for the past week. It’s taken a lot of work, with him sometimes working 14 hour days.But, art is what he loved to do ever since he was a little boy in Nigeria. “I remember my Dad would buy a sketch pad for me, to sketch, to draw and to do crayon right from about four years old,” Popoola said. He said some of his favorite types of paintings to draw are ones that have a religious concept. “It gives me an opportunity to preach the gospel, to talk about God and to really express myself as a disciple of God. “Pastor Chitteth said when he came to the church, the wall seemed to be missing something. With the help of the Bishop of Bismarck Dave Kagan–the Virgin Mary–was the most logical choice. “We are integrating the main concept of Christianity,” pastor Chitteth said. “Mary is becoming a channel for Christians to be more integrated in the walk of mercy. “Popoola hopes people see something more than just a painting.

Source: Artist Turns Heads in New England – KXNet.com – Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson-KXNEWS,ND

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Recent restoration work by Heritage England found that the supposed copy is a 15th-century original.

Researchers have discovered a painting once believed to be a copy of a Botticelli work is an original from the artist’s workshop in Florence. Entitled Madonna of the Pomegranate (ca. 1487), the circular canvas depicts the Virgin Mary, flanked by angels, holding baby Christ and a pomegranate. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery has a larger painting of the same subject from circa 1483.

After removing a thick coat of yellow varnish that had obscured much of the canvas and concealed skillful brushstrokes, restorators were able to confirm the painting’s authenticity. And while a number of metrics—including infrared examination, X-ray testing, and pigment analysis—pointed to the painting’s elevated status as an original, English Heritage’s senior collections conservator Rachel Turnbull told The Guardian it was the halo on the Christ child that gave it away. When they decided to remove the later halo, they found a pattern of the original halo beneath it. “I thought, ‘Bingo, we’ve got it.’ It absolutely looks like other things of that from his workshop,” Turnbull said.

Source: A painting long thought to be a copy of a Botticelli came from the artist’s workshop.

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