What is it about?
This chapter explores the new, seventeenth-century popularity of recreating sacred images, not just for their sacred subjects (of Christ, the Virgin Mary, or saints), but also for their material wear. Through signs of age, and devout and/or violent touch, sacred images and their copies proved their cultural value.
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Why is it important?
These sacred objects and their reproductions in print and multimedia reveal how the very "thingness" of the sacred object--the wooden panel, the chipped paint, the scratch marks, and votive additions--proved sacred truths to early modern devotees.
Perspectives
A new level of accuracy appeared in replicas in print and multimedia across the seventeenth century. These works tell us how artists, patrons, and the greater devout public perceived sacred images and objects. More specifically, they reveal what the populous expected to see: what facets and factual details were required to fully appreciate the original through the replica. These reproductions therefore tell us so much more than the subject of the sacred image or cult object because they incorporate the immersive experience of sacred space.
Erin Giffin
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This page is a summary of: Violence and Votives: Recreating the Scratches, Fissures, and Adornment of Early Modern Sacred Imagery, August 2025, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004522220_015.
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