A bathtub Madonna (also known as a lawn shrine, Mary on the half shell, bathtub Mary, bathtub Virgin, and bathtub shrine) is an artificial grotto typically framing Our Lady of Lourdes, commonly found in Catholic regions of the U.S.
Variations
These shrines most often house a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary but sometimes hold the image of another Catholic saint or of the Sacred Heart. Infrequently, more than one Saint is represented.
While often constructed by upending an old bathtub and burying one end, similar designs have been factory produced. These factory produced enclosures sometimes have decorative features that their recycled counterparts lack, such as fluting reminiscent of a scallop shell.
The grotto is sometimes embellished with brickwork or stonework, and framed with flowerbeds or other ornamental flora. The inside of the tub is frequently painted a light blue color, particularly if the statue is of Mary because of her association with this color.
Somerville, Massachusetts, a city which has traditionally had sizable Italian, Irish, Portuguese and (more recently) Brazilian populations, has over 350 Catholic yard shrines in a town of about four square miles, with more than 40 in actual bathtubs.[1]
For the Love of Mary—Yard Shrines Honoring Blessed Virgin Have Devoted Following, in St. Cloud Visitor (Newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota), August 16, 2001.
Miyazaki, Kevin J. (January 2003). "Our Town". Milwaukee Magazine. 28 (1): 20. ISSN0741-1243.
Sciorra, Joseph (1989). "Yard Shrines and Sidewalk Altars of New York's Italian-Americans". Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture. 3. Vernacular Architecture Forum: 185–198. doi:10.2307/3514304. ISSN0887-9885. JSTOR3514304.
Graham, Joe S. (1997). Hecho En Tejas. University of North Texas Press. p. 229. ISBN978-1-57441-038-9.
Nevans-Pederson, Mary (7 June 2008). "Shrine shift?". Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA). Retrieved 2 April 2009.[dead link]
Ford, Suzanne (1994). Bathtub shrines : a stylistic, iconographic, and contextual analysis. Thesis (M.A. in Art History). University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee. OCLC32691656.
