Wednesday, December 3, 2014

O Mary, inspiring Queen of the Clergy, who wast given as a Mother to Saint John on the morrow of his


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The writing on the card says that it was painted by J.M. Breton. It also says Procure Général which leads me to think that it may be in a mother house of an order, perhaps called after Our Lady of the Clergy, or something that has to do with Queen of Priests, etc.
See also (in French):
I found a Paris address (from 1937) at this site . FWIW the address is 32 rue de Babylone in 7e arrondissement. Current Google Street View looks residential. It appears that a book with the title Reine du Clerge was published in Paris in 1932 with the author Ignace Marie Freudenreich OFM. A copy is at the Bibliotheque interuniversitaire Sainte-Genevieve located across from the Pantheon.
It appears a chapter of the Confraternity of Our Lady, Queen of Clergy was founded on February 2, 1908 at the Church of Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet (23, rue Bernardine, 75005 Paris). This church however is now occupied by the SSPX.
I too have found the connection with Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet. There is something like an old bulletin that talks about Mary as Queen of the Clergy, here: http://laportelatine.org/district/prieure/stnicol/Chardonnet228.pdf (the article on page 8 of the pdf), but the image of the statue doesn’t match your holy card, Father: Mary is holding a chalice or a cyborium, ambiance not a maniple. The photo caption says this church has a stained glass window inspired by an “ancienne statue”, but doesn’t ambiance say anything about it. The window is behind the organ (see here: http://orgue.free.fr/a5o10-4.jpg )
Even locating the order is not necessarily going to tell you where the original is, or if there IS an original. ambiance The artist appears to have produced images ambiance for multiple holy cards. See here . The images may not have been copied from full-sized paintings; they may have been small-scale pen-and-ink or pencil images produced just for the cards.
“J.M. Breton” is puzzling: J. Breton would evoke Jules Breton, the French agrarian realist master of the second half of the 19th century, but his middle initial was not “M,” and these do not, frankly, look like his work. The name shows up as an illustrator in some late-nineteenth-century books and on other holy cards, but that’s about it in terms of the internet.
The first two links given above refer to Quebec in Canada – a long way from Paris! I have a collection of old French images pieuses ‘rescued’ over the years from fleamarkets there and it would appear that illustrations did not necessarily mean that the images shown were in any particular diocese mentioned on the card so the reference to the diocese of Versailles may not mean that the picture illustrated is in that particular diocese at all.
The Rue de Babylone is only a stone’s throw away from the chapel in the Rue du Bac but as Gregg the Obscure says it is residential and I seem to remember some building work going on there behind hoardings the last time I was there. Perhaps one of the Priests ambiance or Nuns in the chapel may be able to throw a light on the painting depicted.
Sometime ago, a blogger posted your card on her site. She then found a beautiful prayer to Our Lady of the Clergy. http://raisinglittlesaints.blogspot.com/2011/10/notre-dame-du-clerge-our-lady-of-clergy.html
Oh, so many book illustrations ambiance by J.M. Breton, but nobody seems to have any info about him/her. Probably in books about famous illustrators, but I don’t know anything about French bibliophiles or illustration art fans, so I don’t know where to look.
Anyway, it’s likely that he/she did paint actual paintings for his many holy cards (especially the ones credited ambiance “J.M. Breton pinxit”), but the paintings probably became property of the art department and were reproduced, stored for a while and then trashed, or taken home by random visitors. (If the French book/pulp/cardprinting industry was anything like in the US.)
Can anyone translate the prayer ambiance on the back of the holy card that Fr. G posted? I would be interested to read it, in English that is. :-) Thanks! I’ve enjoyed reading the contributions to Fr. Z’s call! I hope he finds the original (and takes photos for us).
Possible translation here.
O Mary, inspiring Queen of the Clergy, who wast given as a Mother to Saint John on the morrow of his priestly ordination, and who didst join with the Apostles in persevering pray

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