Székely Zoltán: Arrabona - Múzeumi Közlemények 50/1. (Győr, 2012)
Tanulmányok - Csiszár Attila: Házioltárok, öltöztetett Mária-szobrok a Rábaközben
ARRABONA 2012. 50/1. TANULMÁNYOK HOME ALTARS AND DRESSED VIRGIN MARY STATUES IN THE RÁBAKÖZ The popular home altars and one of their characteristic types: the glassed case home altar is a neglected topic of the Hungarian ethnography. Due to its ambiguous nature this type of objects has not been necessarily collected by the public collections. The ethnographical collections procured them only if the ethnographer of the collection in question were interested in them, while the religious art collections often rejected them referring to their popular nature. In the second half of the 19th century a characteristic peasant culture embracing strong Western European and urban influences was developed on the fertile soil of the Rábaköz region having situated close to the busy market places. In addition to the dress and building the interior decoration was another important representative element of this popular culture that preserved its characteristics until the middle of the 20th century. In the traditionally decorated room a glassed case was placed into the sacred corner, on the chest of drawers or - more rarely - in another point of the room. The case held a mass-produced, painted copy of the devotional statue of this sacral region: the Madonna of Mariazell in Styria. These statues were dressed similarly to their prototype in lint or silk dress decorated opulently with ribbons and lace. Next to the statue paper-flower wreaths, souvenirs from the religious festivals or the family-life were placed. These units were called Mary-house, tabernacle or cilia. The study of the Mary-houses offers several conclusions concerning the development and decoration „style” of this type of objects. The dressed statues placed in glassed cases in the churches, which could be seen by the believers on daily basis, can be considered as the archetype of the house altars of the peasant houses. Another important and manifold influence was the decorating activity of the nunneries. The nuns made the wreaths to the devotional statues of the churches upon the occasions of the religious feasts that might influenced the popular decoration practice. The habit of the paper-flower making goes back to a period that cannot be reached by the recollection, but it is strongly possible that it became popular as a result of the embroidery education practiced by the nuns in the kindergartens and elementary schools of the bigger settlements. Offering the bridal wreath or other pieces of the bridal dress to a shrine and placing them to a miraculous picture or statue as a “votive offering” was a sound tradition both in Western Europe and Hungary, so the similar objects placed next to the Mary statues of the house altars can be considered similar votive objects. Attila Csiszár
