What Are Nuns’ Works, and What Do These Special Devotional Objects Tell Us?

They are small, but their richness is impossible to miss. Carefully shaped flowers, gold- and silver-colored threads, beads and painted images created a fitting setting for religious content in the devotional objects known in Hungarian as nuns’ works.

These pieces also belonged to the everyday life of convents. Needlework and other handicrafts formed an important part of monastic activity in women’s religious communities. Yet the names of the women who made them have usually disappeared, leaving the objects known while their creators remain anonymous.

There were exceptions. The Hungarian Catholic Lexicon mentions Anna Erzsébet, also known as Sister Zsófia, who worked at the Poor Clare convent in Buda in the 18th century. She painted holy images on parchment and also produced miniatures and polion works.

The Kiscelli Museum exhibition places these works within a broader history of sacred objects. Its selection includes an Orthodox book cover from Nagykőrös dated 1813, sacred metalwork, crosses, holy images, souvenirs from Mariazell and a gilded silver chalice. Together, the objects show how religion, craftsmanship and everyday material culture intertwined from the 17th through the 19th centuries.