Nischen-/Kapellenbildstock, Figur Oberreiter Muttergottes mit Kind

The Oberreiter Madonna with Child is an open chapel wayside shrine in Seckau, a village in the Murtal district of Styria. It stands beside a minor road in farmland, sheltered by a simple roof supported on wooden posts. The rear wall of the niche is built of stone, while the front structure is later woodwork. Art historians recognise the rear section as original 18th-century Baroque, with the front added later. The seated wooden figures show close links to a local Seckau Madonna that once passed through Innsbruck and Munich art dealers. Munich art historian Theodor Müller argued this style points to a specific Styrian tradition around 1420, though whether the Oberreiter Madonna is a copy or the original remains uncertain. Inside the niche the crowned Madonna holds the Christ Child on her lap. Beside her are two small late-Gothic limewood statues from a dismantled Calvary group: one of Mary with folded hands and the other of John, his left hand on his heart and his right extended toward the viewer. A Gothic dove of the Holy Spirit hangs above their crowns on a cord from the ceiling.