Juan de Arellano and Workshop

JUAN DE ARELLANO (Santorcaz, Madrid, 1614 - Madrid, 1676) and TALLER.
"Virgin of the milk".
Oil on canvas.
Attached photocopy of expertizaje made by Don Peter Cherry.
Measurements: 157 x 107 cm; 173 x 122 cm (frame).
Cut out on a neutral background, Mary is situated, dressed in a red tunic under a green mantle edged in gold, with the Child in her lap, to whom she is breastfeeding. The decoration is completed with fruit and flowers worthy of being considered a still life in their own right. Although we know Juan de Arellano for his still lifes of flowers above all, he also worked on other themes (landscapes, portraits, allegories and religious works). The work would be framed in the Spanish Baroque school of the second half of the 17th century, following Juan de Arellano, as can be appreciated by the lightness, variety and subtlety of the present painting, or the delicate fabrics, and the play of light and shadow. It also shows very similar characteristics to works on the same subject attributed to Arellano, such as those in the chapel of Santa Tecla in the cathedral of Burgos or the Museum of Santa Cruz in Toledo, both reproduced in the catalog of the exhibition "Juan de Arellano. 1614-1676" by A.E. Pérez Sánchez, figs. 17 and 18 (Madrid, 1998).
The theme of the Virgin of the Milk was very common in Byzantine art, in whose icons the theme was known as Panagia Galaktotrofusa. The type of the Virgin Nurse is already found, however, in the Roman catacombs, with clear Coptic roots, and showed a proven fact in the Gospels and the Liturgy, hence its importance in the Gothic, where it appears either demurely or in clear ostentation, and in very varied positions, from seated to reclining. The Counter-Reformation, however, did not consider it worthy enough and during the Baroque its representations did not abound (except for the clear and striking exception of Caravaggio, with his "Virgin weaning the Child"), at least until the eighteenth century recovered the subject for art because of the elegance it can have, the sweetness it gives off (very much to the taste of the Rococo) and for being a clear example of the maternal-filial relationship between Jesus and his Mother.