The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

James Hampton was a night janitor in federal buildings in Washington. For fourteen years he rented a garage on Seventh Street and, after his shifts, built this vision alone by the light of a bare bulb. He had no art training. The pieces are held together with pins, tacks and glue, and the foil is pressed and folded into feathers, wings and ripples with astonishing patience. Notice the small plaques covered in a script of his own invention that no one has ever deciphered, and the labels in which he signs himself Saint James, Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity.

Hampton told almost no one about the work. When he died in 1964 the landlord found the garage full, and a Washington sculptor spread word of the discovery. The Smithsonian acquired the Throne in 1970 through anonymous donors, and it has been on view ever since, one of the most visited objects in the museum. Critics have called it the finest work of visionary religious art made in America. Hampton's notebook recorded visions of Moses and the Virgin appearing to him in the city, and he seems to have meant the Throne for a future ministry. Stand in the quiet in front of it and it is not hard to feel that intention.

Did You Know? Hampton wrote notebooks in an invented script that no cryptographer has been able to read.