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Postcard 1910 Les Saints Guérisseurs Notre-Dame du Haut Moncontour Brittany
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Pre-linen · 1910

Postcard 1910 Les Saints Guérisseurs Notre-Dame du Haut Moncontour Brittany

Moncontour, Côtes-du-Nord (now Côtes-d'Armor), Brittany, France1910Pre-linenGood

Six folk-carved stone saints stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an open field near Moncontour, Brittany — stiff, wide-eyed, and utterly compelling — each one a specialist healer invoked for a specific human ailment, a living index of rural Breton faith. This hand-colored carte postale, numbered 1206, documents the remarkable Saints Guérisseurs (Healing Saints) of the chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut, a pilgrimage site where desperate petitioners came seeking cures beyond the reach of medicine. Saint Lubin (far left, in bishop's miter) healed eye ailments; Saint Mamert calmed stomach troubles; Saint Méen treated madness; Saint Hubert protected against rabies; Saint Livertin relieved headaches; and Saint Houarnaule — shown holding a wolf on a leash — was invoked against fear. The caption text explains each saint's specialty with charming directness. The vivid hand-coloring over a photographic base gives the statues an almost theatrical presence, their primitive carving style rooted in medieval Breton sculpture traditions that survived well into the 19th century. Published by the prolific Breton postcard house of E. Hamonic, Saint-Brieuc, this card sits at the intersection of religious ethnography, folk art documentation, and the golden age of French regional postcard publishing.

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PC-02565 · Coll. E. Hamonic, Saint-Brieuc
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