Depicted gilded statue of Our Lady with Infant Jesus, so called Our Lady of Svatá Hora (Panna Marie Svatohorská), decorates main entrance portal of the Svatá Hora pilgrimage site in Príbram - the Prague' Gate (Pražská brána).
Highly decorated Baroque main entrance portal, called Prague Gate (Pražská brána), is one of the most beautiful architectonic elements of Svatá Hora (Holy Hill) pilgrimage site and National Cultural Monument in Príbram. The Prague Gate was built according to the plans of architect Kryštof Dientzenhofer's artistic workshop in 1702-1706. The statues on the portal – The Our Lady of Svatá Hora, St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier – and two angels standing on the plinths along the staircase are by Jan Oldrich Mayer from 1706. The architecture of the portal is, in the context of radically Baroque works of art, one of the most beautiful and, from an engineering perspective, challenging. In the niche above the portal, there is a large stone replica of the wooden statuette of Our Lady of Svatá Hora and on the sides of the segment containing the shield there are statues of St. Joachim and St. Ann. There are six stone busts on the attic between the towers: St. Simon, St. Jude Thaddeus, St. James the Greater, Mary the wife of James, Mary Salome, and Mary of Magdala. These statues are the earliest known and documented works of Ondrej Filip Quitteiner from 1707.
Panna Marie Svatohorská
Original statuette in Basilica (40 cm high)
According to the tradition, Archbishop Arnošt of Pardubice is the author of the wooden statuette of the Our Lady with the Infant Jesus from the mid-14th century. The sculpture was brought to Svatá Hora in the 16th century; soon after processions began to come to this place. In 1647 the Jesuits took over the administration of the place and initiated grand construction on Svatá Hora as a place of pilgrimage. The highest honour for the Virgin Mary of Svatá Hora was her coronation in 1732.
Mary, also known as Saint Mary or the Virgin Mary, is identified in the Bible [Mt 1:16,18-25][Lk 1:26-56][2:1-7] as the mother of Jesus, the founder of the Christian religion. Christians hold her son Jesus to be the Christ or messiah foretold in Jewish scripture, and the God made flesh. Mary (Maryam) also has a revered position in Islam, where a whole chapter of the Qur'an is devoted to her, also describing the birth of Jesus. She is traditionally thought to have lived between c.?18 BC – c.?41 AD. Mary has been venerated since Early Christianity, and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint of the Church. Christians of the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, and Lutheran churches believe that Mary, as Mother of Jesus, is the Mother of God and the Theotokos, literally "Bearer of God". There is significant diversity in the Marian beliefs and devotional practices of major Christian traditions. The Catholic Church holds distinctive Marian dogmas; namely her status as the mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. Many Protestants minimize Mary's role within Christianity, based on the argued brevity of biblical references.
The Child Jesus (Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, Christ Child) refers to Jesus from his Nativity to age 12. At 13 he was considered to be adult, in accordance with the Jewish custom of his time. The canonical gospels say nothing of Jesus' childhood between his infancy and the Finding in the Temple at the age of twelve.
From about the third or fourth century onwards, the child Jesus is frequently shown in paintings, and sculpture. Commonly these are Nativity scenes showing the birth of Jesus, with his mother, Mary, and his legal father Joseph. Depictions as a baby with his mother, known as Madonna and Child, are iconographical types in Eastern and Western traditions. Other scenes from his time as a baby, of his circumcision, presentation at the temple, the Adoration of the Three Magi, and the Flight to Egypt, are common. Scenes showing his developing years are more rare but not unknown.
[excerpted from Wiki]