Spanish school of the XVIII century

Spanish School of the XVIII century
"Virgin of Valvanera".
Oil on canvas.
It has flaws in the pictorial surface and in the frame of the period.
Measurements: 84 x 64 cm; 85 x 72 cm (frame).
The Virgin of Valvanera is a Marian invocation of the Sierra de la Demanda, La Rioja (Spain), of which she is the patron saint and one of the seven patron saints of the autonomous communities of Spain. The appearance of the image is recounted in the Latin History, written in 1419 by Rodrigo de Castroviejo Abbot of Valvanera, as a translation of a 12th century Latin text probably written by Gonzalo de Berceo. It tells that the thief Nuño Oñez, hearing the prayer of the one who was going to be his victim, repented of his crimes, commending himself to the Virgin Mary to help him change his life. One day during his prayers an angel appeared to him, telling him to go to Valvanera in search of an oak tree that stood out from the others, from the foot of which a fountain sprouted and which contained several swarms of bees, where he would find an image of the Virgin Mary. He went to that place with the clergyman Domingo and found the image. In that place they would begin to build a place of worship to the Virgin, in the last third of the ninth century.
In this work the author shows the moment in which the invocation of the Virgin appears, for it arranges the main figures; the Virgin and the Nile between her arms, on a pedestal and inscribed inside a trunk. In this kind of natural throne, the base is flanked on one side by a small open chest. In the background, located on the right side of the scene, a landscape can be seen in the distance revealing two figures: an angel and a seated young man who receives the Angel's warning.