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<p>The oracle: coins and a painting as fortune-tellers. Drawn by Frederic de Haenen from a sketch by our correspondent, Rook Carnegie. Pressing money on a "saint" to learn their fate: placing coins on the surface of a picture to see whether they adhere to it, and so indicate good luck. In the old church of St. Demetrius. at Euxinograd, near the Summer Palace of the King of Bulgaria, is a picture of a saint, to the surface of which coins will adhere at one time and will not adhere at another. The superstitious believe that. should the pieces of money they press on it not remain stuck to it, ill-luck will follow them, and they will even abandon projects when this occurs. Below the painting is a trough, into which all the money must eventually fall, to provide a revenue for the church. So continual has been the application of coins that very little can now be seen of the three figures of the picture. The church of St. Demetrius has been in its time church, mosque, and then church again.
</p><p>Volume: 138 , Issue: 3751.
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<bdi><a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18115931" class="extiw" title="d:Q18115931"><span title="Dutch-French painter and illustrator (1853-1929)">Frédéric de Haenen</span></a>
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11 March 1911<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1911-03-11T00:00:00Z/11</div>
<i>The Illustrated London News</i>