Free to use stock images of antique Catholic items created hundreds of years ago such as: statues, holy books, chalices, crosses, and more.
Details: This complex composition served a Russian household's spiritual needs throughout the year by incorporating the whole church calendar in the form of images corresponding to the major feast days. Depicted, starting at the bottom left, are the Birth of the Virgin (September 8), Presentation of the Virgin...
Details: Elaborately decorated crosses were widely used in religious, military, and imperial processions during the Middle Byzantine era. Often, as here, inscriptions in Greek identify the holy figures depicted in portrait busts. On the front of this cross, the central medallion contains a bust of Christ. The archangels Michael and...
Details: This icon repeats a copy, ordered in 1647 and brought to Moscow the following year, of a much older, miracle-working image from the Georgian Monastery of Iveron, on Mount Athos, Greece (hence the name "Iverskaya", i.e. "of Iveron"). This copy was subsequently installed in...
Details: John the Baptist is portrayed with the disheveled locks and beard of a desert hermit, wearing the camel's hair clothing and leather belt described in the Gospels. His cross-shaped staff alludes to Christ's future death. The Greek inscription on the cameo identifies John as the...
Details: Intended for the private contemplation and devotion of its owner, this palm-size ivory diptych illustrates both the reward of salvation and the consequence of damnation. The left wing represents the Coronation of the Virgin. At the bottom a retinue of the saved souls, including a mendicant friar, a king,...
Details: This miniature bust houses the relics of an unknown bishop saint. The assumption that this was Saint Lambert and that the reliquary came from the treasury of the basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht cannot be proven. The small lion feet are later additions. 🙏🏽This image is in the...
Details: The simple patterning of the drapery lends elegance to this figure of the Virgin, while her slightly slumped shoulders, forward tilt, and placid gaze might suggest both fatigue and acceptance of her new role as the mother of Jesus. Traces of the medieval painted decoration are preserved. The Virgin’...
Details: The legend of Saint Margaret, the Early Christian martyr also known as Marina, details the many painful ordeals she endured before her eventual death during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305). Having been swallowed by the devil in the guise of a dragon, the saint burst unharmed...
Details: Hand-held crosses, called hand or benediction crosses, are carried by Ethiopian priests and offered to the faithful to be kissed during church services. Made out of metal or wood, the crosses are also used by priests to bless holy water and to perform exorcisms. Beginning in the 16th century,...
Details: Tino da Camaino was an important and gifted sculptor who worked in Siena, Pisa, and Florence before being summoned to the Angevin court at Naples in 1323. He created a series of tomb sculptures there until his death in 1337. This pair of marble angels is thought to have...
Details: Götz covers every surface in gold leaf, giving each part of the object equal importance, rather than simply framing a central picture. In this distinctively Central European approach, figural narrative is subordinate to the overall ensemble. Götz designed this object to rest on top of an altar, probably in...
Details: This sculpture, along with that of Saint Lawrence (1959.42) and two others in Germany, are believed to be the remaining fragments of a large altarpiece carved by Riemenschneider for the Dominican convent in Rothenburg in Franconia (demolished in 1813). Saints Stephen and Lawrence both wear the dalmatic to...
Details: During the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church increasingly upheld Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary’s mother, as an example of virtuous motherhood, particularly in emphasizing her daughter’s religious education. Its graceful composition also connects to the idealized, elegant work of Guido Reni. Source 🙏🏽This image is in the...
Details: An outstanding example of Gothic goldsmiths' work and enameling, this small devotional diptych achieves a gemlike quality through its accomplished technique and graceful style. The outer scenes of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are executed in translucent enamel with details in opaque enamel, while the inner scenes of...
Details: Andrea was the nephew and disciple of Luca della Robbia, who developed the blue and white glazes used on terracotta sculpture with which the name della Robbia is associated. By the time he made the Lehman Madonna, about 1470–75, Andrea had for some years been chiefly responsible for...
Details: With regal elegance and a tender face, this image of the Virgin constituted the upper portion of a standing or enthroned figure that would have been accompanied by the child Jesus. Artists working in clay would normally divide a large sculpture horizontally with a wire before firing to ensure...
Details: This sculpture belongs to a tradition of seated Virgins that were prominent in Netherlandish art in the decades around 1400, and by extension may be associated with the Valois courts at Paris, Dijon, and Bourges. The theme of the Christ child who writes into an open book or onto...
Details: This sumptuous reliquary sets the Virgin and Child, accompanied by angels, within an elaborate architectural shrine. The arches, vaults, and sculptural decorations are of gilded silver; translucent enamel panels on the wings depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin and the Infancy of Christ evoke stained-glass windows. This...
Details: Represented here by their characteristic attributes are the four evangelists surrounding the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei), as derived from the vision of John in the Book of Revelation (4:6–7): an angel (Matthew), a winged lion (Mark), a winged ox (Luke), and an eagle (John). Originally this...
Details: This sculpture originally stood high on the choir screen of Strasbourg Cathedral. Its place of honor near the center was marked by a canopy with angels holding a crown over the Virgin’s head. A rosebush stood next to Mary and the now-missing Child, linking Mary with Isaiah’s...
Details: This Late Gothic monstrance (from the Latin monstrare, "to show") is mentioned in the earliest inventory of Saint Blaise as "a large new monstrance containing relics of Saint Sebastian the martyr." Judging from surviving receipts, the reliquary was made by Werner Korff, a local goldsmith,...
Details: This ornately cast cross was originally positioned at the summit of a staff carried by an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian priest. The artist has created a symmetrical design that repeats the form of the cross ad infinitum, emphasizing its importance through repetition. The major motif is a pattée cross, a...
Details: Reliquary of gilded copper and enamel champlevé. The obverse is covered with gold leaf on which stones set in rosettes are attached, in addition to smaller rosette-shaped stamps. Furthermore, three imposed, plastic enameled half figures: Christ between two saints. On the roof surface, also covered with gold leaf, the...
Details: This delicate ivory plaque may once have decorated a side of a portable altar. It likely depicts the angel of the Lord appearing to the priest Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, at the altar in the temple. Like the identity of the object in Zacharias’s hands,...
