VOTIVE OFFERING 1987 An Ex Voto Picture by ANDRÉ DURAND
'I liked the idea of two women, an English Princess and an American legal secretary who never met in life, meeting in my canvas. Both women became media stars because of love: one of a Prince, the other of a bisexual man with AIDS. The ancient belief that the royal touch could cure the sick is the heart of the composition'.
André Durand 1987
INTRODUCTION
VOTIVE OFFERING was an ex voto painting by André Durand, inspired by Sunnye Sherman and dedicated to her memory. It commemorated the visit of Diana, Princess of Wales, to the Broderip Ward of the Middlesex Hospital on 9 April 1987.
Of the fifteen life-size figures in the composition, ten, including Diana, Princess of Wales, are portraits of people who were involved in the battle against AIDS in the 1980s. VOTIVE OFFERING depicts Sunnye Sherman, the first American woman to die from AIDS, being touched by the Princess of Wales, invoking the tradition of the healing touch of royalty. They are surrounded by Saints George, Catherine and Sebastian, all Saints that are invoked in times of plague.
Diana, Princess of Wales, took the unusual step of sending a special message to Lord Ennals, honorary Chairman of the VOTIVE OFFERING Committee, which indicated 'her interest in this unusual project'.
VOTIVE OFFERING was formerly unveiled and blessed by the Very Revd. Alan Webster, Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, on All Saints Day, 1 November 1987 at St. James's, Piccadilly.
Recalling an ancient tradition, VOTIVE OFFERING then made a pilgrimage of great churches and cathedrals, including St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Peterborough Cathedral, Wells Cathedral and Liverpool R.C. Cathedral. The pilgrimage ended at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, in September 1988. During the pilgrimage many extra visitors went to the cathedrals to see VOTIVE OFFERING and gave donations, flowers, and said prayers. Parties of school children were taken to see the painting by teachers who realised the educational power of VOTIVE OFFERING.
VOTIVE OFFERING was exhibited again in London at St. John's Church, Hyde Park from 21 November - 5 December 1988, in honour of the inauguration of La Verna House by Lord Mackay of Clashfern, The Lord Chancellor.
APOTROPAIC ART REVIVED BY ANDRÉ DURAND by Brian Masters
With this picture, André Durand has revived the notion of apotropaic art, wherein the artist invokes the forces of Good, through the medium of the Church and with the intercession of the saints, to turn away evil. The tradition of the artist as supplicate to the Deity ascends to the pre-Christian era, when the artist's work was the fulfilment of a vow, or votum the petition for a specific favour accompanied by the promise of a specific due. Durand made such a vow. Hence the title of his painting, VOTIVE OFFERING.
In Roman times a number of votive offerings were made to seek protection from disasters such as earthquake, plague or shipwreck, or to give thanks for delivery from these disasters. In AD 115 the offering took the form of a special coin struck to mark deliverance from the Antioch earthquake. When the offerings were pictures, votivae tabellae, they were hung in religious 
shrines, like those recorded by Cicero, who remarked to Diagoras the Atheist, ‘You who say that the gods neglect men's affairs, do you not perceive from the many pictures how many have escaped the force of the tempest and reached harbour safely?’ The custom continues today in most Latin countries, where village churches are often replete with pictures by anonymous artists bearing the simple inscription, Ex Voto. A nondescript chapel in Monterchi, Umbria, boasts a fresco, The Madonna Del Parto by Piero Della Francesca that is probably a votive offering; The Virgin of Atoch by the 17th century artist Andrès Schmidt, now in Madrid, most certainly is.
By far the most common catastrophe against which protection was invoked was the sickeningly regular visitation of pestilence. From the plague of Athens, described by Thucydides, to the horrifying Black Death of the Middle Ages, in which a quarter of mankind perished, up to the Great Plague of London in 1665, men felt powerless to resist the indiscriminate slaughter by disease and contagion and in their pity and terror turned to God for assistance. Their votive offerings at such times were essentially personal prayers.
At the beginning of 1986 André Durand was inspired by the beauty and personality of an effervescent and joyful young legal secretary called Sunnye Sherman, and determined he would paint her portrait. He did not then know that, at 35, Sunnye had only months to live. She was dying of what threatens to be the modern plague of AIDS. When he discovered this, he vowed to dedicate his painting as an offering, a prayer for salvation from the disease. Sunnye, too, vowed to leave a legacy of good. ‘I ask God’, she said, ‘to extend my life long enough to reach certain goals.’
Sunnye Sherman is now dead, but her vow has been translated into Durand's painting. Adapting the classical iconography of a Renaissance altarpiece, he depicts an imaginary meeting, Miss Sherman in hospital receiving Diana, Princess of Wales, attended by St George, the patron saint of England, St Sebastian and St Catherine of Genoa, both traditionally called upon in time of plague. St Catherine devoted twenty years to nursing the sick in the Pammatone hospital, eventually moving in to live with them as matron. Her devotion to the plague-stricken nearly cost her life. She died in 1510 and was canonised in 1737.
The presence of the Princess of Wales introduces another manifestation of faith. As consort to a future monarch, she inherits the scarcely acknowledged tradition of the healing power of royalty, which dates from Edward the Confessor. Charles II touched over 90,000 people during his reign (usually sufferers from scrofula), about twenty each day. It was a solemn ceremony to the accompaniment of the royal chaplain's richly intoned words, ‘He lay his hands upon them and healed them.’ Dr Johnson was taken as a child to be touched by Queen Anne. The Princess of Wales has already demonstrated her care for those afflicted with AIDS by visiting patients in hospital, so it is entirely appropriate that Durand's vision should show her ‘touching’ the subject by resting a gentle hand on Sunnye Sherman's arm.
The pilgrimage of VOTIVE OFFERING through the cathedral cities of England offers an opportunity for collaboration between artist and worshippers in beseeching God to ‘turn away’ the scourge of AIDS. That the cathedrals should host such a prayer is not surprising, for the artist aspires to the proper aim of achieving a miracle through a painting.
Brian Masters, 1987
Edited by Idea Fine Art, 2007