Devotionalia

Religious printed matter once placed in a coffin, kept in a prayer book, or bought as a keepsake from a pilgrimage. Memorial cards, holy pictures, prayer sheets, and devotional cards from the Catholic tradition of Western Europe, printed in Italy, Germany, France, and the Low Countries from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Some are hand-painted or inscribed on the reverse — traces of the people who once held them.