Scott Oxhorn

Children and their parents gathered in Dorchester, Mass., last weekend to paint a 100-foot-long banner in memory of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed in last week's bombings at the Boston Marathon.

BOSTON -- With song, brushes and buckets of paint, children in Boston are using the arts to try to express feelings about last week's marathon bombings for which even their parents do not have words.

"Painting for Peace” was inspired by 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest person killed in the attack near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Parents and their children turned out last weekend in Dorchester, Mass., the Richard family's home, to paint a 100-foot-long roll of wallpaper with swirls of color and the message held up on an art project by the gap-toothed boy in a picture that went around the world last week: "No more hurting people. Peace."

"It was just the most obvious message that was on everybody's minds," said Liz Carney, who organized the project with her group Dot Art. "We were seeing that image and that message everywhere. A message about peace had a really important place in our response, in our community."

The sign now greets drivers passing under the Savin Hill Bridge over Interstate 93 heading into Boston. About 25 to 50 volunteers of all ages showed up to help create the banner, cards and other paintings and drawings over the weekend, Carney said.

"It was really a very heartfelt expression of peace and solidarity by our neighborhood," Carney said. "I had a lot of parents say how grateful they were to bring their kids to be a part of it, that the children in our community sometimes need a place to express things that are beyond words, and using their hands and having a place to tangibly put their energy is really important."

Boston-area children have turned to art projects like this one in Dorchester to help heal the wounds left by last week's marathon bombings.

Martin Richard’s sister Jane, 7, is among the 425 children from across the city who take singing lessons with the Boston City Singers. Not all of the youngest singers know all the details about the deadly blasts, but they know Jane was among the more than 260 people injured in the attack. Jane Richard lost a leg in the explosions; the children's mother, Denise, was seriously injured.

When a group of 4-to-6-year-old singers went back to Boston City Singers on Wednesday, parents were invited to stay if they wanted, managing director Melissa Graham said. Everything went well even when one little boy had a question about their missing classmate she said.

"One little boy said, 'Janie got hurt, is she going to be OK?'" Graham said. "And the conductor said, 'Yes, Janie is going to be OK. That was just an accident. Janie got hurt, she is going to be OK.'"

Boston City Singers charges tuition but does not turn away children on a financial basis, and makes up for costs with fundraising and grants, Graham said. The same way the children forget about whose parents have more money while making a song together, she said, maybe they will forget about the bombings for a little while when the youth choral group performs at "Children Sing for Peace" on Saturday at St. Mark Church in Dorchester.

The concert, which includes the Cambridge Children's Chorus and other local singing groups, will be about community and not about the bombs allegedly set off by brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Other singers will come from the local Neighborhood House Charter School, which Jane and Martin attended and where their mother works.

"Song is one of those things that unites people," Graham said. "It gives the community a chance to feel like they are doing something."

The same need for expression was clear to Margery Buckingham when children came into the Dorchester Arts Collaborative on Tuesday. She said the week of arts and crafts she had planned for the 8-to-12-year-olds would not continue as though nothing had happened.

"One little girl said how she didn't sleep all night because she was so frightened," said Buckingham, education director at the collaborative, which fosters the arts in Dorchester.

Heidi Katz, an arts therapist from nearby Roxbury, Mass., came in on Thursday, Buckingham said. She did drawings and spoke with the children, and brought rhythm instruments for them to play. She asked the children where they felt safe.

"With most of our children it was at home and in church," Buckingham said. "And one little girl said, 'In my heart.'"

Buckingham called parents to let them known beforehand that the arts therapist would be coming, in case they did not want their children to participate. All the children showed up, and parents sent two more.

"It's something we have to do again," Buckingham said. "These feelings aren't going to go away."

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Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, seen here in 2002, is accused of running a sports-betting ring that catered to Russian oligarchs in the former Soviet Union, and laundered proceeds through Cyprus banks to the United States.

NEW YORK - Federal authorities have charged a prominent New York art dealer and one of Russia's top reputed mobsters with operating high-stakes gambling rings in New York and Los Angeles that catered to billionaires, bank executives, movie stars and professional athletes.

Among 34 people indicted are suspected Russian organized crime figure Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who was charged in 2002 with plotting to rig sports events at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. Tokhtakhounov remains outside of the United States, and that case has not gone to trial.

Also charged was Hillel "Helly" Nahmad, a leading international art dealer and the owner of an exclusive art gallery that bears his name inside Midtown Manhattan's posh Carlyle Hotel.

The gallery was raided on Tuesday as part of the investigation, authorities said.

According to an 83-page indictment unsealed on Tuesday, Tokhtakhounov ran a sports-betting ring that catered to Russian oligarchs in the former Soviet Union, and laundered proceeds through Cyprus banks to the United States.

A second, related operation in New York and Los Angeles allegedly served wealthy U.S. clients including Hollywood celebrities, Wall Street executives and professional athletes, authorities said.

That operation was allegedly run by Nahmad, who was expected to surrender on Tuesday in Los Angeles, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Tokhtakhounov, according to court documents, used his reputation as a mobster to "resolve disputes with clients of high-stakes illegal gambling operation with implicit and sometimes explicit threats of violence and economic harm."

Tokhtakhounov was indicted by federal authorities in New York in 2002 on charges that he plotted to rig the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics pairs figure skating and ice dancing competitions.

He was arrested that year in Italy, whose highest appeals court ruled in 2003 against extraditing him to the United States. He was released by the Italian court.

According to court papers, Tokhtakhounov earned $10 million in 2011 alone as head of the gambling ring.

He is known in Russia as a "vory v zakone," or a "vor," a Russian term that translates to "Thief-in-Law" and refers to the highest echelon of Russian organized crime figures, according to prosecutors.

A number of defendants in the case, of whom 30 were in custody, were expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan later on Tuesday.

Michael Fineman, an attorney for defendant Vadim Trincher, 52, declined to comment after court.

Dana Cole, an attorney for Molly Bloom, who was arrested in Los Angeles and faces bookmaking charges only, said a judge released his client on Tuesday afternoon into the custody of her mother. She is scheduled to appear again in a New York federal courtroom on Friday.

Cole said that while he did not want to "minimize the seriousness" of the charges, "this is not the crime of the century."

Tokhtakhounov and three other indicted suspects - Abraham Mosseri, Donald McCalmont, and William Edler - remain at large and are wanted by federal officials, said Kelly Langmesser, a spokesman for the New York field office of the FBI.

None of the rich and famous clients of the alleged ring were charged or named by authorities on Tuesday. A person who answered the phone at the Nahmad Gallery in New York declined to comment on the indictments. 

A Chinese bowl that a New York family picked up for $3 at a garage sale turned out to be a 1,000-year-old treasure and has sold at auction for $2.2 million.

The bowl — ceramic, 5 inches in diameter and with a saw-tooth pattern etched around the outside — went to a London dealer, Giuseppe Eskenazi, at Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Tuesday.

Sotheby’s said the bowl was from the Northern Song Dynasty, which ruled China from 960 to 1127 and is known for its cultural and artistic advances.

The auction house said the only other known bowl of similar size and design has been in the collection of the British Museum for more than 60 years. The house had estimated that this one would sell for $200,000 to $300,000.

Sotheby’s did not identify the sellers, but said they put the bowl up for auction after consulting with experts. The family bought the bowl in 2007 and had kept it on a mantel in the years since. There weren't any additional details made public about the garage sale where they had purchased the item.

Eskenazi is regarded as one of the world’s foremost dealers of Oriental art. He opened a gallery in 1960 with his father and started a festival, Asian Art in London, for international collectors.

“We will buy when we can, choosing carefully, not being influenced just by what is selling,” he told The Economist magazine for a profile in 2010.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 20, 2013 8:46 AM EDT

AP, file

"Odalisque in Pants" by Henri Matisse.

Two people were sentenced Tuesday for their roles in the attempted sale of a stolen Henri Matisse painting in Miami Beach, authorities said.

Pedro Antonio Marcuello Guzman, 46, of Miami was sentenced to 33 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, and Maria Martha Elisa Ornelas Lazo, 50, of Mexico City received a sentence of 21 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer and FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Steinbach announced.

The pair pleaded guilty Oct. 30 to charges relating to the transportation, possession and attempted sale of "Odalisque in Red Pants" by Matisse, the authorities said in a statement.

It was stolen from the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art in Venezuela around December 2002, they said.

More news from NBCMiami.com

Marcuello negotiated the painting's sale for about $740,000 in a series of meetings with undercover FBI agents between December 2011 and July 13, 2012, authorities said.

He also agreed to have the work transported by courier from Mexico to the U.S., and on July 16 Ornelas took "Odalisque in Red Pants" from Mexico City to Miami, according to authorities.

The next day, on July 17, Marcuello and Ornelas produced the painting to undercover agents as part of the purported sale, authorities said. Both defendants knew the artwork had been stolen, authorities added.

NBCMiami.com

Potomack Company via AP

This undated image provided by the Potomack Company shows French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Paysage Bords de Seine," which was purchased for $7 at a flea market in West Virginia.

The Renoir painting that caused a sensation when it was bought at a flea market for $7 may have been stolen from a museum six decades ago, and an auction house has put its sale on hold.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting "Paysage Bords de Seine" was due to go to auction through the Potomack Company on Saturday, but its sale was put on hold after a Washington Post reporter discovered documents in the Baltimore Museum of Art's library showing it was on loan there from 1937 until 1951, when it was stolen.

The Impressionist work, whose title translates as "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine," was purchased two years ago at a West Virginia flea market.

The buyer, a Virginia woman who has not revealed her name, took it to auction house The Potomack Co. in July, and experts there confirmed it was by the French master Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The frame of the painting includes a "Renoir" plaque.

"I originally bought it for the frame," the buyer admitted to NBCWashington.com earlier this month. "I was trying to rip it apart... I was like, well, maybe I should wait." The buyer's mother encouraged her to get it appraised.

It was expected to fetch $75,000 to $100,000 at auction. 

"The rest of the auction will go on, but the Renoir has been withdrawn," said Lucie Holland, a spokeswoman for The Potomack Co.

Read the story on NBCWashington.com

Potomack said that the London-based Art Loss Registry had said that the painting had never been reported stolen or missing and the FBI's art theft website did not list it as stolen either. There was also no police report from the theft.

The FBI is now investigating.

'Caught by surprise'
The Renoir came to the Baltimore museum through one of its leading benefactors, collector Saidie May. Her family bought it from the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris in 1926.

The Washington Post found records in the museum's library on Tuesday that showed May had lent the paintings and other works to the museum in 1937, Potomack said.

After the newspaper told it of the findings, the Baltimore museum checked its files and found a loan record showing the Renoir had been stolen on November 17, 1951. What happened to it after the theft is unknown.

Doreen Bolger, the museum director, said the museum's probe into what happened to the painting was in early stages.

May died in May 1951 and the art collection was willed to the museum. As its ownership was going through legal transfer, the painting was stolen while still listed as on loan.

"We were caught by surprise," Bolger said on Thursday.

"At this point we just want to make sure that the painting winds up where it belongs and that we provide all the information we can to law enforcement about this issue," Bolger said. 

She said that she would be happy to show the painting again if it is ultimately returned to the museum.

NBC News staff, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — An unemployed Ohioan was browsing at his local thrift store for items he could restore and resell when he spotted a Picasso poster with the word “Exposition” written across the front, some French words, and the image of a warped round face. He handed over $14.14 for what he saw as a nice commercial print.

Some Internet searches later — and a closer look at markings on the lower right area — and he sold what’s believed to be a signed Picasso print for $7,000 to a private buyer who wants to remain anonymous.

“A pretty darn good return,” said Zachary Bodish of Columbus with a chuckle. “Can’t get that at the bank.”

The 46-year-old Bodish, who was an event and volunteer coordinator at a local museum for six years, originally turned to the Internet and a personal blog to write about his neat find from early March. Bodish had lately been supplementing his income with buying and reselling restored furniture, and he suddenly realized he may have hit jackpot.

“I could tell it was not a modern print,” he said. “So I thought, ‘Well, it’s probably not really a fine Picasso print. What’s the chance of finding that in a thrift store in Columbus, Ohio?”

His online search led him to the print’s history as an exhibition advertisement. And he began to look closely at some very faded red writing on the lower right area, which he originally thought were random pencil marks from the thrift store.

“It wasn’t until I realized where the signature would be, and that those little red marks were right where the signature should be, that I got a stronger magnifying glass out and determined that, ‘Holy cow! It’s really a Picasso.’”

Bodish said he consulted with art experts and met with a representative from Christie’s auction house to authenticate the piece. A Christie’s representative confirmed that Bodish met with a specialist, but the auction house said its policy is not to comment on items that aren’t sold through them. In this case, Bodish decided to sell the print privately in April.

Lisa Florman, an associate history professor at Ohio State University, has written several essays and a book on Picasso. She said the print is a linocut, meaning it’s a design carved out and pressed with ink onto paper. She examined the print only through photos, but she said it’s very unlikely the piece is forged because the piece would sell for so low in the grand scheme of major art fraud. She said she’s examined many forged Picasso signatures in the past, but felt confident about Bodish’s print.

Florman said Picasso designed the print to advertise a 1958 Easter exhibition of his ceramic work in Vallauris, France. She said the artist did these prints for several years, and it’s hard to tell how many are around today. There were 100 prints made for the ceramics exhibition, and Picasso signed them all.

But Florman said Bodish’s print, which is marked as number six, is valuable for being in the artist’s proof range. That means it’s possibly one of only a handful he personally reviewed before they were mass produced.

“Any of the 100 are considered original prints,” she said. “There’s certainly some collectors who really place a premium on a single-digit number because it indicates the artist’s greater involvement with the actual printing, so those particular prints can fetch a higher price.”

Florman said Picasso signed so many prints, it’s very plausible the piece ended up at a thrift store in the Midwest.

“It’s kind of a fun story,” she said. “There’s nothing about it that seems fishy.”

Ed Zettler, a 72-year-old retired English teacher from Columbus, claims the print sat in his basement for years before he decided to donate it to the thrift store where Bodish later found it. Zettler, who said it was a housewarming present given to him by a friend in the 1960s, has no hard feelings about what happened.

“I gave it away. Someone else found it. He fortunately saw more. It’s his,” Zettler said. “That’s the risk you take when you bring something to the thrift store.”

Bodish said he plans to use the money for day-to-day bills, including his mortgage, utilities, food and even more quirky purchases at thrift stores and garage sales.

“It’s just been a rough struggle to make ends meet,” he said. “I may have been fated to find it.”

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