Chapelle Notre Dame de Pitié

Built at the end of the 16th century, outside the walls of Mons along the road to Saint Cézaire, the Chapel of Our Lady of Pity originally served as a mortuary depository—that is, a place where the deceased from the surrounding countryside were temporarily laid before the funeral ceremony took place in the parish church. On the right pillar of the porch, on the exterior façade, an inscription dedicated to Our Lady of Pity can still be seen. Inside, the apse is occupied by a stone altar-tomb, surmounted by a carved, painted, and gilded wooden altarpiece by Josep Jourdan. The central painting of the altarpiece, entitled Descent from the Cross, is signed by François Mimault, a Provençal Grand Master. Dating from 1616, this work is one of the rare surviving examples of the artist’s 17th-century production.