Word: jes
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...Jesús Martin Benito was a Basque peasant boy who had hoped for fame as an artist. When he failed at that, he turned to art-doctoring, two years ago became one of the eight official restorers in Madrid's museum, the Prado. On the side, he haunted junk shops looking for castoff paintings-cleaning, patching and touching them up for resale at a tidy profit. One day in Toledo's rastro (flea market) he came across a rare find: a filthy five-by-ten-inch scrap of an old painting that looked like an authentic...
That night, as Jesús scrubbed away the accumulation of greasy grime, the figure of a 17th Century cavalier gradually emerged, and behind it a flight of marble steps. Fully cleaned, it had all the depth and brilliance of a Velasquez. Jesús could hardly believe his eyes, but when Toledo's museum sent two genuine Velasquez fragments to the Prado for temporary storage, Jesús jubilantly produced his find. The three bits matched perfectly. Apparently they were three parts from the same long-lost Velasquez, which some enterprising art dealer had long ago scissored...
Last week the Marqués de Lozoya, Madrid's art director, asked Jesús to name his price for the fragment. "Nothing," was the answer. "It brought me adventure. To discover a Velasquez and call it one's own, even for a short time, is enough." Nonetheless, Lozoya pressed a 20,000-peseta ($1,800) reward on Jesús, proposed him for a government decoration. But Jesús was already off to the junk shops again. "If anyone finds more pieces," he declared, "I am the man who should. I have that Velasquez feeling...
Arthur Daley, New York Times: "With bared heads and cathedral-like reverence we stand before the holy of holies, the Yale-Harvard game. But that unreconstructed rebel from Tennessee, Herman Hickman, he jes' don't know no better...
Piano Playhouse (Sun. 12:30 p.m., ABC). Guests: Concert Artist Jesús María Sanroma and Jazz Pianist Teddy Wilson...