Here we have Immaculata, created sometime in the first half of the eighteenth century by a sculptor who, despite presumably putting in a solid effort, has somehow remained anonymous. I’m not quite sure what the Virgin Mary is standing on here, it might be a snake and if it is, I hope it is being shown being crushed. Although she’s also barefoot on top of a globe, which I’m also not sure that I understand. The swirling golden robes are a little decadent and the whole arrangement is in decent condition.
What I really like is knowing where this item once was, as that adds somewhat to being able to picture the importance of this statue to previous generations. This gilded delight originally stood in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Březová, although I don’t known why it now resides in a rather more climate-controlled room in Bratislava Castle, although I suppose it at least has considerably fewer incense fumes to contend with. Its former home is a modest but rather resilient Roman Catholic church dating back to around 1650. It was constructed on the bones of a previous building that had been confiscated as part of the Counter-Reformation, so it’s literally built on the spoils of religious politics. Its original protestant incarnation got the axe during Habsburg re-Catholicisation, before the current Baroque version went up in 1650. Matters had been restored to some form of normality by the time that this sculpture was placed in the church although I don’t know how long it stayed there for.
Anyway, I’m not sure that I’ve found much to really write about here to surprise and delight my two loyal blog readers, I was just intrigued that they knew where the statue came from, as in some many cases the museum just didn’t know where their treasures had once been located.