A strong woman: The statue of Our Lady of Support and Victory

statue: after 1585; wardrobe: mostly end 18th century

The mannerist polychromed wooden statue of Mary, which was made at the end of the 16th century, when the church recovered from the iconoclast furies, shows some surprising slender elegance. Since 1689 this statue has been known as Our Lady of Support and Victory.

An eponymous fraternity was founded in the same year, in gratitude for the Habsburg victories over Muslim Ottomans in Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade. The statue’s sculpted base displays the spoils of this victory.

The statue is generally displayed on the Mary altarThe altar is the central piece of furniture used in the Eucharist. Originally, an altar used to be a sacrificial table. This fits in with the theological view that Jesus sacrificed himself, through his death on the cross, to redeem mankind, as symbolically depicted in the painting “The Adoration of the Lamb” by the Van Eyck brothers. In modern times the altar is often described as “the table of the Lord”. Here the altar refers to the table at which Jesus and his disciples were seated at the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper. Just as Jesus and his disciples did then, the priest and the faithful gather around this table with bread and wine., clothed in an apron and short cloak, each in  the fitting liturgical coloursThe colour of the chasuble, the dalmatic, and the stole, among others, varies according to the time of year. The main liturgical colours are:
green: this is the standard colour
purple: in times of penance and expectation, i.e. Advent and Lent
white: on the high feasts such as Christmas and Easter
red: on the feasts of the Holy Spirit [such as Pentecost and confirmation] and on special feasts of martyrs.
. The Christ child wears a small dress in matching tones. As such, the clothing lends colour to the intimate bond between mother and child.

The broad apron and long cloak, resting on the head and fanning out onto the floor, were inspired by fashion at the Spanish court during the fourth quarter of the 16th century. This Spanish outfit became a fixture in the dressing of Mary statues in Counter-Reformation countries.

The statue of Our Lady of Support and Victory has a wardrobe consisting of various cloaks for each liturgical colour. Most mantles that have been preserved date back to the second half of the 18^th century; some of them are in damask and were made from donated ladies dresses.

But is this traditional wardrobe – how honourable it may be – still fit to clothe this unique person, Jesus’s mother?  And who wouldn’t give a lover new clothes, from time to time – after 150 years? Thus, ‘the most poetic of the Antwerp Six (fashion designers)’ – Ann Demeulemeester – was asked to design a contemporary creation  in 2001, the Antwerp Year of Fashion. Next to ‘life’ and ‘simplicity’ she wants to express that “this woman, Mary, represents what she is.” The reflecting spangles underneath the transparent cloth evoke something of her eminence. The collar of white pigeon feathers had been the designer’s signature for ten years. Was this allegorical dove not a sign of Mary’s election ‘amongst all women’?

ConfessionalA piece of furniture that was especially designed to facilitate the sacrament of confession, especially by avoiding that confessor and penitent come face to face. To the left and right are kneeling pews for penitents; in the middle is a small booth where the confessor sits. Both are separated from each other by a partition with a grid, so that the confessor can hear the penitent, but cannot see him / her., attributed to L. Willemssens, 17^th C.

The intended reconciliation is depicted here by two angels seemingly kissing each other on the cheek.

Stained glass window Our-Lady as a Support for those in trouble at sea, (H. Dobbelaere, 1866)

It caught the imagination of Vincent Van Gogh in 1886, but it was heavily restored after the 1945 bombing.