French Gold-Filled Reliquary Crucifix Pendant Containing Earth from Lourdes, Circa 1900s-1930s

Gold-filled crucifix pendant with an applied corpus, made as a reliquary holding a small amount of earth from the Grotto of Massabielle at Lourdes, France.

In 1858 a fourteen-year-old miller's daughter, Bernadette Soubirous, reported eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the grotto, where a spring rose from the ground she was told to dig. Lourdes quickly became one of the great pilgrimage sites of the Catholic world, and pilgrims carried home water from the spring and earth or stone from the grotto, sealed into crucifixes, lockets and medals as devotional relics believed to bring healing and protection. Bernadette was canonized in 1933.

Shows light wear consistent with age.