Chalice from a Slovenian-American Catholic church, 1915
The Church of the Holy Cross in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was built in 1915 to serve a community of several hundred Slovenian immigrants and their descendants. In 1972, when the church was about to be demolished and rebuilt in a new location, a parishioner contacted the Smithsonian and asked for help in saving the ceiling paintings, the work of the Slovenian artist Ivan Gosar. Curators ultimately collected the paintings, stained glass windows, and ceremonial objects, including this gilded chalice, which was displayed in the 1976 exhibition A Nation of Nations.
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Religious History
