Our Lady of Mercy
Author: Unknown
Date: 18th century
Material: Gilded and polychromed wood
Dimensões (cm): H 82 x W 59 x D 38
Provenance: Guimarães, Igreja de São Paio
Inventory No.: E 102
18th-century sculpture, representing Our Lady of Mercy, which in Italian is translated as Pietà. The Virgin is sat on the throne with her head covered with a large mantle and she is holding Christ’s lifeless body.
Our Lady of Mercy was also worshiped in Guimarães, though one is not certain of the date of the chapel with that invocation that existed in the tower of the wall of Guimarães with a door known as Saint Dominic’s Door, Village Door or still Our Lady of Mercy’s Door. This image, worshipped in the Igreja de São Paio, where the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Mercy was headquartered, seems to have come from the old chapel of the wall tower.
The feast took place on the Sunday following the 8 September of each year, the festivity being celebrated with all the pomp.
With the demolition of the Igreja de São Paio, the image passed into the possession of an antiques shop and from there it came to the Museu de Alberto Sampaio.