Votive offering model of a xabec

Sailors’ votive offerings are an important source of documental information, on both the life and the work of the sailors and fishermen, and the methods they used to carry out their work, and especially on the big ships and small vessels which could be found in our ports for centuries, but which today have disappeared. In many cases, the painted depictions and models of these vessels in the form of votive offerings made by sailors are the only such everyday images that have survived to the present day. This XVIII century votive offering, brought from the hermitage of Santa Cristina at Lloret de Mar, is a perfect example of a kind of vessel that now no longer exists, and which we only have knowledge of thanks to the existence of this model. The xebec is a typically Mediterranean vessel, and had three masts: a foremast, angled slightly towards the prow, a main mast and a mizzen mast, located almost at the stern. The sails are lateen rig. This model of a xebec is armed with 28 cannons. It is shown in full sail. The sails on the foremast and mizzen mast are blue-and-white striped, while the sails on the main mast and the jib are striped red-and-white. The figurehead is in the form of the head of an animal. A human head has been carved on the helm. The inscription on the mirror on the poop deck confirms the fact that this model was a votive offering “Ex-voto, I was made by Francisco Fabregas 1785”.