Pierced Sacred Heart sculpted in ‘relic paste.’ Likely the work of a nun.

[Relics] / [Convent art]. Pasta di reliquie di più ss. S.l. [Italy]: s.n., s.a. [18th century]. [14.1 x 12.9 x 1.8, exterior of frame], [1] framed and glazed ‘relic paste’ heart with painted wound and applied letterpress strips, surrounded by cut brocade paper. Wood frame covered with hand-painted paper, metallic ribbon applied around both glazing and frame edge, backed with cartone. Some cracking to heart and chipping to its left edge. Frame well preserved. Colors still fresh and bright.
 
 
Unusual framed & glazed 18th-century Italian devotional image of a Sacred Heart spouting blood from a wound. The heart is molded—according to applied strips of letterpress text—from “relic paste made of many saints” (“Pasta di reliquie di più ss.”), i.e., dust and other fine, undifferentiated particles collected from a holy burial site, quite likely catacombs.
 
 The item’s decoration is typical of the 18th-century and of the work of nuns. Such items were made for use in the convents or to be sold or given to the faithful.
 
‘Pasta di reliquie’ was a sort of stucco composed of a mixture of paper, glue, and dust/soil from the cemeteries and catacombs of saints and martyrs. This material, used since the 17th century, was  shaped and painted to create figurines, statuettes, medallions, or images of saints and sacred emblems. Inscriptions such as ‘di più ss. Martiri,’ ‘Pain de S. Réliques,’ ‘s. plu. m.,’ or other labels were added to indicate the presence of this holy compound (see especially Borsook and Cordez).
 
 
*E. Borsook, ed., Fantasia in Convento: Tesori di Carta e Stucco dal Seicento All’Ottocento, see esp. 101-178; P. Cordez, Schatz, Gedächtnis, Wunder die Objekte der Kirchen im Mittelalter; F. J. Beche, Reliquien, Relikte, Ressourcen: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Ausstellung menschlicher Knochen zwischen Sakralraum und Museum, pp. 135-6.