New Granada School; 17th century.

Viceregal school; 17th century
"Sleeping Infant Jesus".
Gilded Huamanga stone.
It presents slight faults.
Measurements: 14 x 31 cm.
Devotional image carved in huamanga stone, representing the naked Baby Jesus, sleeping with his head resting on a skull. It is a work of enormous naturalism, typically Baroque, characterised by a realism derived from the careful study of the natural. The image refers to a specific 16th-century artistic genre, which could be translated as "As we are born, so we die". This was a popular subject in Flanders and Germany during that period, and is strongly related to the more popular Vanitas still lifes. Within the genre of vanities, which was so important, depicting the transience of life was one of the themes that most preoccupied Baroque artists. Vanities denounce the relativity of knowledge and the vanity of the human race subject to the passage of time and death. Its title and conception are related to a passage from Ecclesiastes: "vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas" ("vanity of vanities, all is vanity").
Huamanga stone is a type of alabaster (lime sulphate) extracted from quarries located in the districts of Pomabamba, Chacolla, Canchacancha and Chuschi, in the province of Cangallo, Peru. It was given the Quechua name of niño rumi (child's stone) in allusion to the religious sculptures of the child Jesus that proliferated in the viceregal era, and because of its fragility; it is also known as berenguela and replaces western marble. The stone carving of Huamanga is a characteristic artistic manifestation of Ayacucho. There are three stages in the artistic evolution of Huamanga stone carving. The Viceroyalty or heyday, in which religious themes predominate. Although there are alabaster quarries in various regions of Peru, in Ayacucho itself, there are also deposits in the province of Cangallo, a few leagues from Pomabamba and in Chacolla, it is in Huamanga where a school of sculpture (influenced by Spanish carvers from Navarre and Aragon) has developed since colonial times, which knew how to take advantage of the qualities of the material to produce various decorative and religious objects. Hence, with the passing of time it became known as the Huamanga Stone. It was also popularly known as "niño rumi", "niño's stone", because it was used to make the "Manuelitos" for nativity scenes.