Spanish school, ca. 1800.

Spanish school, ca. 1800.
"Immaculate".
Carved and polychrome wood.
Presents faults.
Measurements: 70 x 29 x 17 cm.

The figure of the Virgin as the Immaculate Conception stands on a carved wooden base with curved moldings and large scrolls representing clouds and a crescent moon. With her right foot she steps on the serpent, symbol of evil. Mary stands solemnly wrapped in a white tunic and a blue mantle with a border and gold prints. The young Virgin joins her hands on her chest, and keeps her gaze low, with narrowed eyes that bring a great naturalism to the ghetto of her face. Her fine, idealized features bring a calmness to the figure, also usual in the Immaculate Conception.

The theme of the Immaculate Conception, very frequent in Spanish art from the 17th century onwards, became one of the signs of national identity of Spain as a Catholic country. It is one of the most genuinely local themes of Spanish Baroque painting, since our country was the main defender of this mystery, and the one that fought most insistently to make it a dogma of faith. In this context, numerous artists and intellectuals worked to build a clear iconography that would help spread the Immaculate Conception, bringing together symbolism and popular fervor. Based on the previous advances of painters such as Juan de Juanes, it was Murillo who built the definitive image of the Immaculate Conception, finding a formula that allowed him to bring together in one image all the necessary features. Thus, he created a new typology where Mary is no longer the child of the works of Zurbarán and Velázquez, and is free from the overload of iconographic and symbolic elements and attributes of the previous versions. Thus, the allusions to the Litany, basic in the previous iconography, disappear and the image is reduced to the essential elements: the Virgin, splendorous in her ascent to heaven, stepping on the crescent moon that alludes to Diana's chastity and surrounded by angels, clouds and golden light. In this way, in fact, it is combined with the theme of the Assumption, without losing the strength of the message. This new conception soon becomes the purest formula for representing Mary's glory, transcending the original intention of creating a new immaculist iconography.