As an artistic child promise growing up in Bavaria, could Berta Hummel ever have known that her art would become a worldwide sensation? After she joined the convent and became Sister Maria Innocentia, her paintings were reproduced as postcards. In 1935, the first Hummel figurines appeared. For many years, two of them sat on my grandmother's mirrored shelf, safely away from the hands of small grandchildren. Flea markets now do a brisk trade in Hummels. Whether you think they are charming or too kitschy, they hearken back to a happy vision of a gentler time.