Posted 13 years ago
Pencil-nec…
(104 items)
Not being of the Catholic persuasion, this item has us stumped. The wife picked it up at a thrift shop a while back. There is an oak frame around the reverse-painted glass with "BLESSED BE THY HOLY NAME" at the bottom. The figures of Jesus, Mary & Joseph are painted chalkware, it appears, but there is no access inside. The overall size is 13" wide, 26" tall and 3-1/2" deep. There are two small metal candleholders on the front and the alcove at the bottom is empty other than the printed paper lining.
My questions:
~Is this the type of thing that was for in-home use or is it more likely it came from a church?
~ The alcove at the bottom ~ would that have held holy water or did it have any other use?
~ There is some obvious age to this piece, but other than a guess of 'likely early 20th C.', we don't have a clue as to the age ~ do you?
~And lastly, I'm pretty sure this isn't a 'station of the cross', but don't know exactly how to refer to it other than 'religious icon'. Ideas?
Hard to believe Goodwill only put $10 on it.....
Thanks, Offy....
Hoping the relocation of this item will stimulate some additional responses to my questions....
Hello - I was pleasantly surprised to see this as we have recently come into possession of one too. Date-wise, we don't know when it was made but we do know my Great-Grandmother brought it to Britain from New York in 1916.
Ours is more or less the same minus a few details; on ours, the candle-holders were originally hinged, to be pulled out and used when needed, and unfortunately appear to have broken off at some stage. The painting on the glass is identical, although the words "Blessed Be Thy Holy Name" are picked out in gold in a Gothic font. The biggest difference is the figurines; instead of the Holy Family, ours depicts Mary cradling the crucified body of Jesus; the paper (?) background inside the case is identical though.
The final difference is that ours has a small picture based on Da Vinci's Last Supper which folds down into a shelf supported by brass chains; the alcove inside contains some candles, a silver spoon and a silver communion plate or paten. We don't know what the item itself is called, but we do know it was used to administer the Last Rites.
Hope this helps!
Sorry - I forgot to add, as far as we know it would appear to have been intended for home use.
Thanks for the reply... I was neglegent in not posting additional information here I later obtained about it. You are correct on it being a Catholic station which held various cups, holy water & etc. When I found out how many of the 'original equipment' items were missing from ours, including the candleholders, I kinda lost interest. My wife likes this kind of stuff even though she's not Catholic.
They show up on ebay from time to time, but usually don't sell for much ~ under $100 for a complete example if I recall correctly. Here's one that ran recently without a sale:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-CHRISTIAN-JESUS-AND-MARY-IN-A-CATHOLIC-STATION-FROM-PRIEST-/271033849150?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f1ae0553e
Yes, that one is a lot the one I have save for the writing at the bottom, and the the slightly different candle holders.
I've been looking at some other examples online, what seems unusual is that while they all seem to bear a strong overall likeness, it seems that there are a lot of minor variations between them. Not just the big things like the figures (though the Pieta seems to be more common than the Holy Family), but smaller things such as the candle holders, or the text at the bottom of the glass. On others, the surface of the shelf is different. For instance, this one says "Laudamus Te" and appears to have two small candle holders contained inside the alcove, rather than fixed to the case: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-Pieta-Catholic-Last-Rites-Sick-Call-Ladamus-Te-Hanging-Kit-/200820404557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec1d4314d
I'd love to find out who the maker is/was, and just why there appears to be so much variation between them. It seems odd that none of them appear to have any indication of this.
OK... last post for this... we figured out that it was a "Catholic Sick Call / Last Rites Box".
No other ID as to maker. Hope that helps.