Ceramic picture - Depicting the Pieta of Sasvár

Ceramics and Glass Collection

Accession Nr.: 2359
Manufacturer: Holics faience manufactory
Date of production:
ca. 1760
Place of production: Holics (Holíč) (presumably)
Materials: faience
Techniques: painted in polychrome overglaze; slab rolled; tin-glazed
Dimensions:
height: 19 cm
width: 16 cm

Sasvár (today Šaštín, Slovakia) in the county of Nyitra was one of the most well known places of pilgrimage in Hungary and the Habsburg Monarchy in the eighteenth century, which saw more than 100,000 pilgrims from places near and far. The holy shrine run by the Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit has a Pieta sculpture at its center which they dressed as in a unique way: placing gold crowns on the heads of Mary and Jesus, and a voluminous blue veil flowing from the crown of the Virgin Mother. This is how the shrine sculpture appears in this ceramic plaque, which may have served as a souvenir, which was probably made in the nearby Holics (today Holíč, Slovakia) faience manufactory.

The collection of the Museum of Applied Arts also has a 1776 saint’s picture on parchment with the shrine sculpture of Sasvár in which the figure of Mary is seen wearing the same blue veil. (see here).