Tuesday Treasures - April 14, 2026

 I had the best thrifting day in a long time a few Saturdays ago!  First a stop at St. Vincent de Paul gained me a few interesting, but not fabulous, things I'll share in another post.  This post is for the fabulous finds!

I hesitated on this, as it was $8 and that's a bit higher than I usually go.  However, I do love religious art for it's beauty.  This was on wood, with a label from Venice, and old.  They had it marked "vintage," which was an understatement!  It's actually at a minimum 150 years old, likely older, perhaps as old as 1780.  It's a panel icon painted in the Byzantine style with raised relief work, and gold leaf.  It would have been produced in a Catholic workshop in the area of Venice, Dalmatia, Istria, or Northern Italy, in the Byzantine iconographic form.

 The photo does not do it justice, it's much more golden, it really shines in the sun.  Although I don't let it sit in the sun, I don't want to damage it!

The saint is holding a prophetic text in Latin, typical of Western-Byzantine workshops.  He and the border ornaments are done in raised gesso work, levkas.  This consists of chalk and animal glue, modeled prior to painting.

The back has a label from Osvaldo Böhm, Fotografie, Venezia, a photo studio in the late 19th to early 20th century.  This indicates it was photographed, documented, or sold through the studio, and the handwritten note suggests later handling by dealers or restorers.  The label aligns with known circulation of icons through the Venetian art markets during this period, not that the artworks themselves dated to that period.  So, my $8.00 was well worth it, as this is worth many times that!  Will I sell it?  Probably not. 

Later in the day my son sent me a photo he'd taken the day before of an item he'd seen at Goodwill.  I recognized it as a Mexican shrine, and hurried right down and there it was, right where he'd seen it.  

It's a Mexican devotional shrine (Nicho-Templo) mid-century in Spanish-colonial revival style, likely Guanajuato/Michoacán workshop made, but not for the tourist trade. 

The back has a door to insert for a saint or Virgin figure into the niche.  In describing it my son texted that it was deeper than I might think, like it could hold "a block of cheese."  Well, he was right, it's a rectangular space, and would fit a block of cheese!  

The decorations are tin, attached with tiny square headed brads or nails. 

  $4.31 

(I think they under priced it due to the employees thinking it was a "clock case," as the cashier said.

Quite a coincidence to find two Catholic devotional items at two different thrift stores on the same day.   Of course, at least a century and a half and over 6,000 miles separated them before they ended up in the same Oregon valley!