Castilian school; XVI century.

Castilian School; XVI century.
"Virgin and Child".
Carved wood, polychrome and gilded.
Presents faults in the carving, polychrome and Repainting.
Stand attached to the sculpture.
Measurements: 55 x 22 x 18 cm (sculpture); 7 x 23,5 x 23,5 cm (pedestal).
Mary stands, standing on a pedestal, holding the Child Jesus with both arms. Mary wears a long tunic and mantle whose arrangement generates an interesting play of folds, which adds volume and dynamism to the figure. The Child, on the other hand, is a remarkably naturalistic infant figure, with delicate and soft features, rounded cheeks and a spontaneous gesture. Jesus carries a golden sphere that represents the world. He is a Triumphant Child, Savior of the World, and symbolizes the idea of Jesus as man and savior, lord of all the Earth, which he redeems with his death and resurrection. It is an iconography that combines divine power and grace with the happy innocence and humble condition of God incarnate. The presence of the Virgin conveys the bond between Jesus and his mother, which allows Mary to act as an intermediary, as an advocate for the human race before Christ at the moment of the Last Judgment.
Spain is, at the beginning of the 16th century, the European nation best prepared to receive the new humanist concepts of life and art because of its spiritual, political and economic conditions, although from the point of view of plastic forms, its adaptation of those introduced by Italy was slower due to the need to learn the new techniques and to change the taste of the clientele. Sculpture reflects perhaps better than other artistic fields this eagerness to return to the classical Greco-Roman world that exalts in its nudes the individuality of man, creating a new style whose vitality surpasses mere copying.