Sevillian school; second half of the XVII century.

Sevillian school; second half of the seventeenth century.
"Virgin Girl spinner.
Oil on canvas.
It has a frame of the nineteenth century with faults.
Measurements: 67 x 46.5 cm; 82 x 62 cm (frame).
The Prado Museum of Madrid has a work of anonymous author where the same composition and themes that follow the models established by Zurbarán and Juan Simón Gutiérrez can be appreciated. This work shows a composition, drawing and coloring that fully coincides with the artist Juan Simón Gutiérrez. In this "Virgin girl spinning" stylistic traces similar to those that this artist used in the representation of the same subject that belongs to the Museo del Prado, and is currently deposited in the Museo del Ejército. This version we are commenting on is full-length, while the one in the Prado is only half-figure as here.
The "Child Virgin spinning" was a pictorial representation that was always executed as a pair with the "Infant Jesus wounding himself with the crown of thorns", which in this case, as on many other occasions, has been separated from its companion due to divisions of inheritances or sales in which the original intention of the artist was not taken into account. The iconography of this painting shows the Virgin as a child, when she was in the Temple of Jerusalem preparing for her transcendental mission of being the Mother of God. It was a pictorial theme that had great devotion in Seville and, therefore, numerous versions of it were made. The origin of this iconography is surely in Zurbarán since, although no representation of this theme has been represented by him, his versions of "The Child Virgin praying" and "The Sleeping Child Virgin" are known.