Sorry, my mistake. It is SANTA MONICA CONVENT, in Old Goa.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Driscoll" <[email protected]>
To: "Goanet Post" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 10:23 PM
Subject: Goa Museum of Christian Art . . .
Many will be aware that this fairly recent facility is housed in Mater Dei
Convent, Old Goa. Today's Herald (Upcoming Events Column) has the
interesting invitation to 'celebrate Collectors Day', on Sunday 15 th
Inst. One can 'register' by emailing museumofchristianart (AT) gmail.com.
I'm not a 'collector', but this raises some interesting associations, and
I rather think that I will be there for this. When my late wife brought me
to Goa from Canada, about forty years ago, her first cousin in Caranzalem
greeted her by waving a key. This is key to your Mummy's room in the old
'Caranzalem House'. Open it and take what you want from there.
Among the 'tea cozies', paintings on glass, silverfish laden notebooks and
the rest, were three small objects that look to be for all practical
purposes 'indestructible'---and quite possibly dating back three, four, or
five Generations. There are two bronze, palm-sized figures, one of a
female cattle (highly decorated) and one of a standing 'god-figure', which
my genial Hindu neighbor tells me 'looks Buddhist'. Then there is an
ivory-tusk carving, of a beautiful symbolism that I seem to recall seeing
somewhere, sometime, in some book---but cannot recall where or when. It is
of a figure disgorging a steady stream of 'water' into a fountain-bowl.
Beneath this in slumber-like repose is a youthful robed figure, which to
my mind may be a symbol of the as yet fully emerged human consciousness.
Will be interested if some others there can further enlighten me.
Not 'Christian Art' I'll grant, but probably even more spiritually rich.
One reads speculations of Historians, about home altars keeping small
'idols' discretely out of the line of vision---in days when convert
'back-sliders' were under the inquisitorial scanner. How many of the old
houses may have similar icons resting in the dusty attics---and what to do
about them. I'd probably try 'carbon dating' these, but probably could not
afford it.
