Granada School; XVII century.

Granada school, following models of ALONSO CANO (Granada, 1601 - 1667); c, 1700.
"Chapel tabernacle".
Carved wood, gilded and polychrome.
It presents polychrome of later period and has faults in the carving.
Measurements: 50 x 22 x 17 cm; 25 x 28 cm (base).
Devotional image of Mary as Immaculate, with a closed and ascending structure, in the form of a spindle, which follows the models established by Alonso Cano. The image represents Mary in a praying position, dressed in blue and white (colors allusive to the concepts of truth and eternity, the blue, and purity, the white), on a pedestal of clouds adorned with cherub faces and with the fourth crescent moon, allusive to the iconography of the Immaculate Conception, which exceeds the sides. The piece follows the traditional iconography, in such a way that the spectator can recreate himself with the delicacy of the carving, which is displayed in the conception of the mantle, which seems to be waved by the wind, and in the fineness of the Virgin's facial features, completely idealized.
Because of its formal and iconographic characteristics we can frame this Inmaculada within the circle of followers of Alonso Cano, painter, sculptor and architect who is considered today as one of the most influential artists of the Spanish Baroque. He was also the initiator of the Granada school of painting and sculpture, and his disciples included Juan de Sevilla, Pedro Atanasio Bocanegra, José Risueño, Pedro de Mena and José de Mora. Son of an important assembler of altarpieces and possibly also a draftsman, Alonso Cano was initiated in architectural drawing and imagery by his father, with whom he collaborated from a very young age. In 1614 or 1615 he moved with his family to Seville, where he soon joined the painting workshop of Francisco Pacheco, by then the most prestigious master of the city, in fact Velázquez's master, with whom Cano became a close friend. As a sculptor, it is traditionally considered that he must have trained with Juan Martínez Montañés, although there is no documentary evidence of this. In 1624 he signed his first known painting, and two years later he obtained the title of master painter. In 1638 he moved to Madrid, and was soon appointed chamber painter and drawing teacher of Prince Baltasar Carlos. There he became acquainted with the royal collections, which will lead his language to evolve from its early Caravaggism to a more colorful and elegant language, sometimes related to Van Dyck. However, in 1644 he was accused of murdering his wife, which led him to take refuge in Valencia. A year later he returned to Madrid, and in 1652 he returned definitively to Granada, where he obtained a position in the cathedral thanks to the influence of Philip IV. There he completed the decoration of the main chapel and became the main master of the cathedral. Works by Alonso Cano are currently kept in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan in New York, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other important collections in Spain and abroad.