Sunday 31 March 2013

St Mary's Cathedral, sculpture

This sandstone statue of "Our Lady and the Child Jesus" stands near the College Street entrance of St Mary's Cathedral. It stood outside the original St Mary's Cathedral which was destroyed by fire in 1865. It was created in 1850 by French Benedictine monk and sculptor, Fr John Dom Eugene Gourbellien, then stationed in Sydney. in 1912, when the West Wall was dismantled and rebuilt, the statue was given to a family who lived at Point Piper where it stood in the garden until it was donated back to the cathedral in 2008 by the then owners. It was cleaned, restored and returned to its original location.
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16 comments:

  1. Lovely old sculpture, perfect for today..happy Easter Jim.

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  2. I'm glad this Mary came back to St. Mary's.
    It's already Easter for you Aussies. Happy holiday!

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  3. How super that the Benedictine monk was a] a talented sculptor and b] stationed in Sydney in 1850. No-one else here at the time could have done such a sensitive job, I believe.

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  4. Great story Jim. Happy Easter to you.

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  5. «Louis» noticed that you went to the archives for this post for inSPIREd Sunday - which is fine by him as he had never seen it, so it is quite fresh from his perspective! :-)

    This is a happy outcome for that fine statue. It is back where it belongs. The figures of Mary and Jesus are quite well-sculpted, too. When one compares work like this with what passes for sculpture today, it shows the decline of our culture.

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  6. Great sculpture though it does look like it was ravaged by fire

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  7. Neither Mother or Child look very happy. Probably all those decades of standing. Perhaps they need to sit down & take a load off for a while

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  8. Back where they should be, i can't imagine having this in my garden.

    Diana
    http://adifferentlenslens365.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/toko-church.html

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