Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00-18:00
Opening hours:
Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00-18:00
Votive offerings are individualised gifts given to the Church by people with a specific request or in order to give thanks. They express the greatest fears and concerns of the individual. They appear among the upper classes in the 17th and 18th centuries, and became widespread among the majority of the population in the 18th and especially in the 19th century. After the end of the First World War, and even more so after the Second World War, the custom became more rare, although it did not entirely disappear.
The oldest surviving votive offerings are metal, but wooden ones are also common. These two materials have been used only in certain regions. Offerings made out of wax were the most common, as wax was an important offering to the Church. Votive paintings, which first appeared among the wealthy nobility in the 17th century, represent the most prestigious form of votive offering.
Votive offerings made out of iron are very rare in Slovenian ethnic territory. They were found in Carinthia and partly in Styria. All the wrought iron offerings in the collections of the Maribor Regional Museum depict cattle.
Until the 20th century, cattle represented the foundation of a farmer's existence, so votive offerings depicting cows, oxen, cows with calves, etc. appeared in large numbers.
Wrought-iron votive figurine of a bovine. According to traditional knowledge, it is the product of a local blacksmith from the beginning of the 20th century from Ožbalt ob Dravi. Inv. no. E 135.
Many sources suggest that one of the greatest disasters for the Slovenian farmer was the loss of cattle. In the Middle Ages, cattle was threatened by various diseases: the earliest known record of this kind dates from 1224, when cattle plague spread throughout Styria and Carinthia.
Wrought-iron votive figurine of a bovine. According to traditional knowledge, it is the product of a local blacksmith from the beginning of the 20th century from Ožbalt ob Dravi. Inv. no. E 137.
The field record kept at the Maribor Regional Museum shows that, in addition to metal ones, wax and wooden votive figures of livestock also appeared on the altars. A record from the first half of the 20th century is a testimony of a churchgoer. He talks about two solid wooden votive figurines depicting oxen and two sheep figurines that stood in the church of Sveti Duh. The animals had escaped from the pasture but after a long search, they were found near the church, so they brought these votive images as a token of gratitude and remembrance.
Wrought-iron votive figurine of a bovine. According to traditional knowledge, it is the product of a local blacksmith from the beginning of the 20th century from Ožbalt ob Dravi. Inv. no. E 134.
