Dress carving or cap-i-pota of the Virgen Dolorosa, XIX century.

Dress carving or cap-i-pota of the Virgin Dolorosa, XIX century.
Carved and painted wood. Period dress in black velvet enriched with metallic embroidery. Face covered by tears of vitreous paste. Metal crown.
Measurements: 55 cm (total height); 37 cm (without crown).
Sculpture of typology "Cap i Pota" (head and feet) that responds to the iconography of the Virgin of Sorrows or the seven Sorrows, a set of events in the life of the Virgin Mary that are a popular devotion and are often found collected in art. The devotion to the sorrows of the Virgin has its roots in medieval times, and was especially spread by the Servite order, founded in 1233.
The "cap i pota" images are figures worked in detail only on the face and hands, on a wooden structure carved to a greater or lesser extent. Although the figures for dress were often used in processions, in this case it is a figure intended for private devotion, given its small size. The visible parts are covered with a thin layer of stucco and polychromed, while the rest is covered by real clothes. They are images that were especially liked for their naturalism, since by wearing authentic clothes a greater degree of realism was achieved than with the simply carved ones, which often did not have enough quality to achieve that degree of naturalism, so sought after in religious art since the Baroque period.