VOTIVE OFFERING ROOM

As a sign of gratitude, it was customary to offer the sacred image to which the miracle was attributed something that expressed the favour obtained in illness, childbirth, drought, plagues, bad harvests, wars or shipwrecks. From this perspective, a wide repertoire of objects should be valued: from simple candles lit ephemerally, photographs, popular paintings narrating the event to representations of people or parts of the body healed, in wax or precious metals; also, representations of animals, both domestic and traditional livestock; elements of agriculture such as tobacco leaves; vehicles of all kinds, as well as elements linked to navigation. As well as representing the fulfilment of a promise, of a vow – hence the name ex-voto – their presence in sanctuaries and on altars was evidence of the efficacy of certain devotional images.
The collection of votive offerings in the Sanctuary of the Patron Saint of La Palma is one of the most important in Spain, an authentic monument to the devotion to the Virgen de las Nieves throughout the centuries and which continues to this day.
This votive ensemble is completed with the collection called Emblems of Mary or Glories of the Virgin, a series of paintings in emblematic language with biblical quotations and allegorical representation of the text; all of them in praise of the Virgin. They are the work of the Palmero artist Aurelio Carmona López, painted on paper in 1852.