Spanish School, XVII-XVIII centuries.

Spanish School, XVII-XVIII centuries.
"Immaculate Conception.
Wood carving and polychrome.
Silver crown.
Measurements: 58 cm. (Virgin height); 96 cm. (total height of the whole).

Devotional carving of great quality, representing the Virgin in her invocation of Immaculate Conception. Worked in round bulk, she appears wrapped in a tunic and mantle that are agitated with achieved dynamism, printing around the body naturalistic draperies of extreme plasticity. Her wavy hair participates in the attractive compositional movement, fully baroque. She places her feet on a pedestal formed by a cloud through which the heads of seraphim and a crescent moon appear, symbol of purity and chastity, qualities associated with the Virgin Mary. She slightly bends her left leg and interlaces the fingers of both hands as if she were about to join them in prayer, but keeping this gesture spontaneous, thus avoiding the rigidity of the gesture of piety. The carving, the stewing and the gilding endow the face with soft qualities and the garments with sumptuous and tactile textures, which denote an unusual skill of the carver. The flaming crown is silver.

It is an image anchored in the late-baroque models, which can be appreciated in the folds of the fabrics, wide and chiaroscuro, worked with a lot of relief, as well as in the tactile sensuality of the whole. The sculptor has also taken great care to reflect the expression of mystical serenity of the beautiful face of Mary. The Immaculate Virgin is assimilated to the bride of the "Song of Songs", and to her are associated various symbols popularized by the "Litany of the Virgin of Loreto" (whose present form dates from 1576). It is the baroque art of the 17th century that creates the definitive type of the Immaculate Conception, in fact this sculpture follows the aesthetic models of this century. Free from all the symbols of the Litany with which the theologians had overloaded her, surrounded only by angels, she floats in a mandorla on a crescent moon. Sometimes, to recall her victory over original sin, her feet, resting on the globe, crush the head of the tempting serpent.