Late Baroque sandstone Marian column from 1725-1727, a votive offering of thanks for the end of a plague, in the middle of the Racibórz Market Square.
The Marian Column stands in the middle of the Market Square (Rynek) in Racibórz. It is a late Baroque sandstone Marian column, made in 1725-1727 by the Austrian artist Johann Melchior Österreich.
The column stands on a two-step base. On a three-sided pedestal with concave sides lies a decoration of acanthus leaves, and above it rises a retable with heraldic cartouches and putti. It is crowned by a statue of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception with a crown of twelve stars and a crescent moon at her feet, trampling a serpent. On the corners of the plinth stand three figures of intercessors: St Florian on the east side, St Sebastian on the west, and St Marcellus the Pope, patron of Racibórz, on the north. Three foundation plaques with the names of the donors are also placed on the pedestal.
The column is a votive offering of thanks for the end of the plague that struck the town in 1715. In 1724 Maria Elisabeth von Gaschin died, and in her will she obliged her son Karl Ludwig to sell a house and build a stone column in the Market Square. The town council concluded the contract with Österreich on 24 April 1726, and the sculpture was completed in 1727 on the site of a medieval merchants' house.
The column was renovated in 1827, when the cast-iron fence from the foundry in Gliwice was made, then in 1850 and 1963. In 1993 it was cleaned of dark deposits, dried and the binding material was replaced, which had threatened the monument with collapse. The latest renovation lasted from August to October 2021, when dirt and secondary stone repairs from the 1990s were removed and new gilding was applied. A local legend is linked to the column, according to which its destruction will herald the end of the world, and moving the plinth will flood the town. The column survived the last war, although about 80 per cent of the surrounding townhouses were destroyed.
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