Follow models of Alonso de Mena

It follows models of ALONSO DE MENA (Granada, 1587-1646).
Spanish school of the XVII century.
"Immaculate Conception".
Carved and polychrome wood.
Presents faults in the carving and polychrome.
Measurements: 96 x 40 x 28 cm.

A choir of seraphs form a promontory of clouds on which the small feet of the Virgin rest. Under the invocation of the Immaculate Conception, the carver follows a model popularized by Alonso de Mena, which we can admire, for example, in the Church of San Matías in Granada. The Virgin we show here also joins her hands in prayer, adopting a dignified and elegant air. Over the draped tunic with broken folds opens the stewed mantle, blue as a symbol of purity.

Father of Pedro de Mena, Alonso de Mena's style is a fervent continuation of that of Pablo de Rojas (1580-1607). Other outstanding works are the Christ of the Expiration in the church of the Immaculate Conception of Adra (Almeria) as well as the Lord of the Box of Velez-Rubio, also in the province of Almeria, is attributed to him. The Immaculate and the altarpieces-reliquaries of the cathedral of Jaén and those of the Royal Chapel of Granada, where he made the royal portraits of the bank as well as the images of the saints of the doors of the main body.

Medieval Christianity passionately debated the belief that Mary had been conceived without stain of original sin. Some universities and corporations vowed to defend this privilege of the Mother of God, several centuries before the First Vatican Council defined the dogma of faith in 1854. At the end of the Middle Ages the need to give iconographic form to this idea was born, and the model of the Apocalyptic Woman of St. John was taken, maintaining some elements and modifying others (the Apocalyptic Woman is pregnant, but not the Immaculate). The definitive image came to fruition in the 16th century. Following a Valencian tradition, the Jesuit Father Alberro had a vision of the Immaculate Conception and described it to the painter Juan de Juanes so that he could capture it as faithfully as possible.