St Elizabeth of Hungary (?)
| Author: |
Unknown artist |
| Created: | first half of the 20th century |
| Material: | wood |
| Technique: | carving, colour paint |
| Dimensions: | 38 cm |
This primitive sculpture portrays a saint holding the edge of her apron with one hand, and pressing three fishes against her bosom with the other. It may be St Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–1231), made by an unknown artist in an unusual way. St Elizabeth was a Hungarian princess who married the ruler of Thuringia, and was renowned for her extraordinary mercy, compassion and generosity in helping the poor, the sick and the dispossessed. Religious carvers usually represented St Elizabeth with a basket of bread, giving a loaf to a kneeling beggar, for according to legends she was very generous to the poor. When making sculptures of the more obscure saints, religious carvers would look at works in churches or at devotional pictures. In some of them, St Elizabeth is shown with long loaves of bread in a basket or in her hands. The shape of the bread may have looked like fish to a carver, and so he pictured a fish. Or possibly the carver took as an example a picture with a bowl with fishes, a very rare attribute of the saint.
Text author Skaidrė Urbonienė
Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album HEAVEN AND BEYOND (2016). Compiler Dalia Vasiliūnienė. Text authors Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė UrbonienėExpositions: “Heaven and Beyond. Works of religious art from the collection of Rolandas Valiūnas and the law firm Valiunas Ellex“, 31 May–24 September 2016, Church Heritage Museum, Vilnius (curators Dalia Vasiliūnienė, Skaidrė Urbonienė)
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