Oil on canvas laid down on board showing a builder falling from a platform in an apse

Oil on canvas laid down on board showing a builder falling from a platform in an apse, St Bruno (?) interceding with the Virgin and Child, by an Italian painter, 1701-1900

Paintings like these are known as an ‘ex votos’, meaning ‘from a vow’ in Latin. Left in a church in gratitude for answered prayers, each tells a story of a cure or delivery from disaster through the intervention of the Virgin Mary or another Christian saint.

The tradition, which continues to this day, is developed from Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman practices of offering gifts to the gods.