Looking for a Picture

[Spiritu]

Hello everyone,

I’m on a quest to find a certain image, and I was wondering whether someone might be able to help me, please? It appeared briefly on the projector screen at Mass a few years ago, but had been deleted from the system by the time I asked about it. It still haunts me, though.

It’s a painting that shows a young woman (presumably Mary, though it could be a secular image used in a religious context), dark-haired and dark-eyed, sitting at the front door of her mud house with her feet resting on the sand. The whole painting is in shades of brown, beige and gold. There are a few overturned pots scattered around her, and she’s sitting to the right of the centre. But what makes it so striking is that she’s looking straight at you with a look of surprise and wariness; you have clearly just stepped into her world. Very different from the pictures of Mary usually shown at Mass, but that’s what caught my attention in the first place.

If anyone knows the picture I mean, I’d be very grateful if you’d let me know what it’s called and who it’s by. All I know at this point is that it’s on Google somewhere; however, typing “Virgin Mary” into Google Images brings up 378 000 hits, so it may take a while otherwise!

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

 

[SeekerJen]

Based on the description of overturned pots and wary expression, I wonder if you’d have more luck searching under “Samaritan woman at the well”.

 

[YinYangMom]

It might help if you let us know in what liturgical season the image was used, was it during a mission appeal? was it Lent, Christmas, a feast day perhaps, a call for vocations?

Once you narrow that down, year/season/reason for the image being displayed in the first place, you can then contact your diocese to find out which orgnanization was visiting parishes at that time…

Narrowing down the who sponsored the event will get you closer to who compiled the presentation which will then lead you to the source documents within the presentation.

In the meantime here’s one which might fit but there aren’t any pots and she’s not at the front door. Most everything is done in browns except the woman’s dress and she does appear to be looking at us with caution : womeninthebible.net/2.1-11_MARY_The_Annunciation_James_Christensen.jpg

Perhaps seeing this image will help you recall other details of the one you’re looking for.

 

[Spiritu]

Thank you very much for your suggestions; I’m following up on “Annunciation” and “Samaritan woman”, and both have given me some fairly promising leads so far. (A number of pictures have appeared in each that have some similarities to the one I’m after, so I live in hope!)

Your back-tracking idea is excellent, YinYangMom; unfortunately, though, Powerpoint is used at every Mass in my church to show responses, song lyrics and so on, and so it’s not connected with any particular season or event.

I’ll keep looking, and make a triumphant post here if/when I find it. In the meantime, thanks once again!