Holy cards from the collection of the Reverend Mozė Mitkevičius

Holy cards, or devotional or saints’ pictures, which were often referred to as abrozdėliai in Lithuania in the 19th and early 20th century, were printed or drawn images of Christian iconography, devotional objects attributed to the category of small or small-scale prints. These images were usually kept in a prayer book and were also called prayer-book images. They were also used as bookmarks and as decorations of prayer books or mobile illustrations with short prayers on the reverse.

The basic function of holy cards was increasing individual piety. Creators of these pictures sought to make an ideological connection between the image and the text, if there was any. Another function of the pictures – serving as a memory of some event – was also marked with intimacy. Texts printed on the reverse and hand-inscribed words mark various occasions: the acceptance of the sacraments of the First Communion or priesthood, the first service of the Holy Mass, the vows taken by monks, the performed missions, spiritual exercises, celebrated anniversaries, visitation of parishes, etc. They were given as gifts on various occasions. One of the earliest known holy cards representing the Infant Jesus were created by German nuns in the first half of the 14th century and were used as Christmas greetings. Pictures of religious content used for sending greetings on the great church holidays can be reasonably considered the predecessors of greeting cards.

Holy cards became widely popular in the 19th century, when technical possibilities allowed mass production of relatively cheap works of art of allegorical content decorated with paper openwork or relief ornaments, and reproduction of images that had won fame for their graces.

Typical holy cards have large circulation, and are printed on parchment paper, pieces of fabric, paper and even rubber using various techniques prevailing in different periods. Certainly, paper was and still is the main material. The earliest pictures were drawn or painted, but already in the 15th century woodcuts and copper engravings came into circulation. With a growing demand for this kind of pictures, centres of serial production emerged. In the 18th century Augsburg gained importance in the Catholic world, as it was home to copper engraving workshops ran by the dynasties of artists, which supplied thousands of small black and white and hand-coloured copper engravings. Street vendors sold them in the locations that attracted a great number of people – markets and religious holiday gatherings. The tradition of decorating the pictures, trimming them with handmade details or framing them with meticulously cut, carved or often filigreed paper patterns, and occasionally with perforated ornaments was formed in monasteries in the period of Baroque. In the first half of the 19th century new techniques of multiplying pictures – lithography and steel engraving – appeared. In imitation of these small-scale prints, patterns cut by monks were often encircled with so-called paper lace created from decorative stamped and perforated imprints. At the forefront of the production of “paper lace” pictures were the French, who turned Paris into a new world centre of the spread of holy cards in the middle of the 19th century.

Holy cards of the top European level were published by the physician and cultural figure Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński (1806–1885), the initiator of the collection of prints “Album of Vilnius”. Somewhat simpler devotional carvings with Lithuanian inscriptions were produced in Salantai by the local dean Stanislovas Čerskis in the 1820s and 1830s.

Holy cards with Lithuanian texts published in the period of the press ban also have a special meaning that has not been fully realised yet. Pictures with various plots containing prayers, novenas, crowns, hymns, or invocations is a generous source of knowledge about the religiosity of the earlier generations. Such pictures were owned by far more people than those who read Lithuanian books or periodical publications.

The early Lithuanian holy cards cannot be imagined without the contribution of their most important and productive publisher, Juozas Angrabaitis (1859–1935). The scale of the work that he carried out for the sake of maintaining the Lithuanian language and culture still has to be appraised, although he is famous as one of the most eminent figures of book smuggling and publishing in the period of the press ban. Lithuanian publications and holy cards were distributed and, after the lifting of the press ban, also published by Liudvikas Jakavičius (1871–1941) in Riga, Antanas Baltrušaitis (1883–1970) in Naumiestis, and Aleksandras Bendikas (1867–1939) in Salantai. From 1905 not only travelling vendors, but also bookshops and shops of religious accessories sold holy cards. In the interwar period, the “Malda” company took the leading position in the publishing of holy cards. Monastic orders also published quite many pictures. An important distributor and importer of holy cards was the “Pavasaris” bookshop in Town Hall Square in Kaunas, which imported a great many pictures from Italian producers. The production of holy cards in the Soviet period was illegal and clandestine, and the most popular production technique was photocopying, mainly of previously published pictures.
The collection of holy cards of the Reverend Mozė Mitkevičius presented in this exhibition is not the largest in Lithuania. However, it is quite substantial, and the prevailing production of the most important European and Lithuanian publishers of holy cards of the 19th – first half of the 20th century allows us to see the key tendencies of the tradition of holy cards – the nature and intentions of religiosity, iconographic panorama, fashions of artistic expression and decoration, and various production techniques. And, certainly, the human touch.