Idyllic and graceful, this 19th century French holy card depicts the depth of gentle and intimate love between Jesus, Mary, and his doves, which are you and me. If you look closely, you can see that Jesus is blessing the doves. Usually in Victorian Catholic art, doves mean the faithful, unless falling from the sky, such as this one gently coming to earth, suggesting the Holy Spirit. And, as she is Queen of Heaven _and_ Earth, Mary is seated on a woodland throne.

The phrase, Le Seigneur aime la louange qui vient des cœurs purs means, The Lord loves praise that comes from pure hearts. We think it's a quote from P. Eymard, i.e, Father Eymard, an extremely popular priest at the time who promoted a devotion to Mary and the Eucharist and helped revive the French Church. He was canonized in 1962.

Bouasse Jeune in Paris, one of our time favorites, published holy cards for over 100 years.

You may be interested in holy cards of this image, available here on Etsy at

There was some staining and discoloration on this long out-of-copyright image. We spent a long time restoring it towards its original beauty. This print, like a lot of our collection, is only available from us. Overall, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of good Catholic images out there, or more, but we work to bring you just the few we love and to make them as perfect as we can. We want to curate a collection that brings you joy.

For framing, a lot of frames would look good with this. Try a warm wood or a gold frame. You can matte it if you want, but you don't have to matte our prints. They look pretty good with the 1.35" white border around the print. All our prints are standard size, so you can easily get a frame you like at your hobby store or online.

** IMPORTANT ** THE IMAGE IS SMALLER THAN THE PAPER! There is a white border of about 0.5" inch for 5x7", 1.3" for 8.5x11", or 1.6" for 11x14" pictures. All Approx! Fine art printers do this because the images are almost never the same rectangular ratio of the standard paper sizes. It also gives the prints a finished look, and lets them look good in a frame without a matt.

- Acid-free paper
- Archival pigments, rated to last for generations.
- Cardboard backer
- Above story of the art
- Enclosed in a tight-fitting, crystal clear bag.

Thanks for your interest!

Thanks!
Sue & John

"In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art." ~ St. Pope John Paul II

Original image is out-of-copyright. Descriptive text and image alterations (hence the whole new image) © by Sue Kouma Johnson - CatholicArtAndJewelry.