Walking through the streets of Antwerp last month, we quickly noticed a very large number of devotional statues attached to building facades, most of them very well-maintained. I started taking pictures, until the number became just too great.
Curiosity led me to the discovery that they are a souvenir of the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. Under Spanish rule in the 17th century, Antwerp was a Catholic bulwark against the Protestant revolt to the north.
One form of that resistance to Protestantism was a near-fanatical devotion to the Virgin Mary, and many families declared their allegiance by installing a small shrine.
I saw one estimate that by the end of the 17th century there were over 2,000 of these images, and that there are still perhaps 300 today.
The one below is one of my favorites because of the juxtaposition of the religious statue with the frolicking Bacchantes on the facade of the beer hall. It’s almost possible to read Mary’s expression as a resigned “What can I do about them?”
