Antique Portable Shrine, Saint Germaine Cousin, Copper Statue in Bronze Rotating Case, Circa 1870, 5 Centimetres Tall
This is such a delightful and rare portable shrine. It is about the size of a lipstick and the case is made of bronze while the tiny statue of Saint Germaine is made of copper. In order to keep it safe the case turns around the statue.
It is entirely hand made and an absolute treasure.
Over the many decades since this little shrine was made France has been involved in over 30 wars and I can imagine that many soldiers have carried this tiny shrine including during the 1st and 2nd world wars.
I have a great affinity with Saint Germaine. Firstly because she was born not far from where I live and more importantly because of the touching nature of the story of her life.
Saint Germaine Cousin (1579–1601) is a French saint. She was born in 1579 of humble parents at Pibrac, a village 15 km from Toulouse.
"From her birth she seemed marked out for suffering; she came into the world with a deformed hand and the disease of scrofula, and, while yet an infant, lost her mother. Her father soon married again, but his second wife treated Germaine with much cruelty. Under pretence of saving the other children from the contagion of scrofula she persuaded the father to keep Germaine away from the homestead, and thus the child was employed almost from infancy as a shepherdess. When she returned at night, her bed was in the stable or on a litter of vine branches in a garret. In this hard school Germaine learned early to practise humility and patience.
Notwithstanding her poverty she found means to help the poor by sharing with them her allowance of bread. Her father at last came to a sense of his duty, forbade her stepmother henceforth to treat her harshly, and wished to give her a place in the home with his other children, but Germaine begged to be allowed to remain in the humbler position. At this point, when men were beginning to realize the beauty of her life, she died. One morning in the early summer of 1601, her father found that she had not risen at the usual hour and went to call her, finding her dead on her pallet of vine-twigs. She was 22 years old at the time.
Germaine was made a saint in 1867 by Pope Pious IX
This is such a delightful and rare portable shrine. It is about the size of a lipstick and the case is made of bronze while the tiny statue of Saint Germaine is made of copper. In order to keep it safe the case turns around the statue.
It is entirely hand made and an absolute treasure.
Over the many decades since this little shrine was made France has been involved in over 30 wars and I can imagine that many soldiers have carried this tiny shrine including during the 1st and 2nd world wars.
I have a great affinity with Saint Germaine. Firstly because she was born not far from where I live and more importantly because of the touching nature of the story of her life.
Saint Germaine Cousin (1579–1601) is a French saint. She was born in 1579 of humble parents at Pibrac, a village 15 km from Toulouse.
"From her birth she seemed marked out for suffering; she came into the world with a deformed hand and the disease of scrofula, and, while yet an infant, lost her mother. Her father soon married again, but his second wife treated Germaine with much cruelty. Under pretence of saving the other children from the contagion of scrofula she persuaded the father to keep Germaine away from the homestead, and thus the child was employed almost from infancy as a shepherdess. When she returned at night, her bed was in the stable or on a litter of vine branches in a garret. In this hard school Germaine learned early to practise humility and patience.
Notwithstanding her poverty she found means to help the poor by sharing with them her allowance of bread. Her father at last came to a sense of his duty, forbade her stepmother henceforth to treat her harshly, and wished to give her a place in the home with his other children, but Germaine begged to be allowed to remain in the humbler position. At this point, when men were beginning to realize the beauty of her life, she died. One morning in the early summer of 1601, her father found that she had not risen at the usual hour and went to call her, finding her dead on her pallet of vine-twigs. She was 22 years old at the time.
Germaine was made a saint in 1867 by Pope Pious IX
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