In the seventeenth century, Ethiopian artists were increasingly exposed to forms of expression from Europe. During this period, double-sided diptychs became popular among the nobility as pendant icons worn suspended by a cord around the neck. The subject matter depicted on this example is a standard
A small Russian portable triptych of painted icon panels in a silver, gilt and brass frame, made to be carried and opened for prayer while traveling. Medium: Painted icon, silver, gilt, brass. Measurements: overall (closed) 2 3/4 x 2 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (7 x 6.4 x 3.8 cm).
Once used as decorations for a reliquary shrine, each enamel plaque represents a biblical prophet: Isaiah, Obadiah, Elisha, and Hosea. Fine gold dots punctuate dark blue backgrounds. Typical of Hildesheim enamels, this detailing creates the illusion that the prophets sit against star-studded twiligh
This is a list of my favorite 12 orders of Catholic nuns and sisters in no particular order. This list includes their history, and images of their habits. What is a Catholic Nun or Sister? In the Roman Catholic tradition, there are many religious institutes of nuns and sisters (the...
Learn the purpose of The Free Catholic Gallery with this short blog.
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Supposedly Saint Longinus carried two relics to the city: some earth on which Christ's blood fell while he was crucified, and the sponge soaked with sour wine that was offered to him to drink. Longinus buried the relics before being martyred in a.d.
Saint Paul and Saint Sirus are panel paintings likely from the same large altarpiece. Panel painting was a lengthy process that required many steps. The panel is a plank of wood that was prepared with many layers of gesso, a glue-size-chalk substance that forms the white base layer...
The Scala Sancta (English: Holy Stairs, Italian: Scala Santa) are a set of 28 white marble steps that are Roman Catholic relics located in an edifice on extraterritorial property of the Holy See in Rome, Italy proximate to the Archbasilica of Saint John in Laterano. Officially, the edifice is titled...
In this image, Saint John the Evangelist and four mourning women gather around the cross on which Christ's emaciated body rests. These figures were meant to model the emotional compassion to be felt by the viewer. Schongauer's image focuses on crowded scenes, grotesque physiognomies of Christ&...
Boucher painted this picture for his patron, Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV. Partly to please the religious faction at court, she commissioned devotional pictures for the chapels in her various residences. She ordered this one of Saint John, her patron saint, for a chapel in the Capuchin...
The world-famous International Pilgrim Virgin Statue (IPVS) of Fatima was sculpted in 1947 by famous sculptor José Thedim. The image reflects the precise instructions of Sister Lucia (the surviving seer at Fatima). Her desire was that the pilgrim image represent Our Lady’s position when she revealed herself as...
The Virgin Mary is seated in front of the entrance of a stable made up from the ruins of a building. She holds the Christ child on her lap and hands him a box containing gold, the gift from the oldest of the three Kings, Melchior, who is kneeling in front of them.
These panels depicting Saints Anthony the Abbot and Michael originally flanked a central scene of the Madonna and Child with Angels, now lost, to form a triptych. Giovanni di Cosimo de’Medici of Florence commissioned the ensemble in 1457 as a gift to Alfonso V of Aragon. Fra Filippo Lippi,...
The Discalced or Reformed Carmelite, a branch of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, was founded by St. Teresa of Avila, in 1562. Before her death, she established 16 Monasteries of Nuns. The first monastery of the Second Order of Carmel was established in the U.S. in...
This engraving is half of a two-print scene depicting the Annunciation to the Virgin, when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would miraculously give birth to the Son of God. Presumably buyers could purchase the prints separately, although Schongauer probably hoped people would want to collect them both. His...
Little is known about the life and career of Sint Jans. He seems to have been born in Haarlem in Holland in the northern Low Countries where he may have been attached to the Knights of Saint John as a lay brother, and likely produced an altarpiece for that order....
This statue was taken at The Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America. This monastery is a Franciscan complex at 14th and Quincy Streets in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington, D.C. Located on a hill called Mount Saint Sepulcher, and anchored by the Memorial Church of the...
This engraving is half of a two-print scene depicting the Annunciation to the Virgin, when the angel Gabriel told Mary she would miraculously give birth to the Son of God. Presumably buyers could purchase the prints separately, although Schongauer probably hoped people would want to collect them both. His...
Photograph of a Franciscan monk standing in the exterior front corridor overlooking the garden at Mission Santa Barbara, ca.1904. He is wearing a habit. His right hand rests on the baluster. The tiled floor and rafters of the ceiling are visible. At left part of a picket fence encloses...
This print of the Nativity is the first of a set of four engravings considered to be an incomplete series of episodes of the Life of the Virgin, which also includes the Adoration of the Magi (1942.1070), The flight into Egypt (1954.260), and The Death of the Virgin(...
This is a rare example of a surviving 15th-century painting from the northern provinces of the Netherlands (present-day Holland). This region had fewer centers of artistic production than the more populous southern Netherlands, and it also experienced substantial destruction of artworks during the iconoclastic outbursts of the mid-...
The Cathedral of the Transfiguration is a Slovak Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic former cathedral located in the community of Victoria Square in Markham, Ontario, Canada. The cathedral was built in a rural area north of the city of Toronto and was built to serve Slovak Catholics throughout the Greater Toronto...
It consists of twelve prints detailing the suffering of Christ in the last days of his life. Schongauer's version focuses on crowded scenes, grotesque physiognomies of Christ's tormentors, and great pathos in the compositions.
Correggio spent most of his brief career in the northern Italian city of Parma. Removed from the great centers of Renaissance art, he was able to create a remarkably innovative body of work. This intimate devotional panel is a product of the artist’s youth. Here Correggio revealed his own...
Burial plot of the Little Sisters of Jesus and Mary in section 70 of Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., in the United States in 2014. The Little Sisters of Jesus and Mary is a religious body for lay women within the Roman Catholic Church. The organization formed in...
Prints of the Man of Sorrow were widely widespread in Northern Europe after the mid-15th century. This image, originally drawn by Martin Schongauer, portrays Christ naked above the waist, wearing the crown of thorns, and displaying the wounds of the Passion marking his hands and side. The Virgin Mary...
Sebastian, a bodyguard for the Roman emperor Diocletian, was shot with arrows and was eventually drowned for his commitment to Christianity. While the arrow alludes to Saint Sebastian, the young man’s clothing dates to the late 1400s, indicating that this is a contemporary portrait, rather than an image of...
The Catholic Franciscan chapel of the "Condemnation and Imposition of the Cross", according to tradition, this was where Jesus took up his cross after being sentenced. It is based on the finding of large Roman pavement stones that may have been part of Pilate's judgment seat...
This coloring page, which is based on Martin Schongauer's series of the Passion of Christ, was his largest set of engravings, made around 1480, and extensively copied across Europe. It consists of twelve prints detailing the suffering of Christ in the last days of his life. Schongauer'...
