Granada School of the 18th-19th century

Granada School of the 18th-19th century.
"Immaculate Conception.
Carved wood, gilded and polychrome.
It presents Repainting and restorations.
Measurements: 74 x 30 x 22 cm.

Round carving representing the Virgin in her invocation of Immaculate Conception. Mary is shown standing on a fluffy cloud from which emerge the peaks of the lunar crescent, as well as several heads of seraphim. Dressed in a light decorated tunic and with a blue mantle edged in gold, she joins her hands in a prayerful attitude, which imprints a naturalistic play of folds on the mantle. Her hair falls loosely down her back, and the features of her fine face and long neck give her a remarkable elegance, stylizing her bearing. Stylistically, it is inserted in the Granadian baroque, which can be appreciated not only in the iconography, but also in the model chosen as an influence for it, in the decoration of the clothes, in the coloring, in the features of the face, etc. Compare, for example, with the face and volumes of the "Inmaculada del facistol" made by Alonso Cano in 1655 and preserved in the Sacristy of the Cathedral of Granada, or the hand models or environment of Diego de Mora (Granada, 1656-1729), brother of José de Mora who also trained with Alonso Cano (particularly the Inmaculada de la Iglesia Parroquial de Santa Cruz de Pampaneira in Granada), or the one in the Parish Church of Santa Cruz de Pampaneira in Granada; or that of the parish church of La Anunciación de Cogollos Vega in Granada, to cite two examples somewhat similar to the present sculpture).
The dogma of the Immaculate defends that the Virgin was conceived without Original Sin, and was defined and accepted by the Vatican in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus, of December 8, 1854. However, Spain and all the kingdoms under its political dominion defended this belief before. Iconographically, the representation takes texts both from the Apocalypse (12: "A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman wrapped in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars") and from the Lauretan Litany prayed after the rosary and containing epithets of Mary taken from the Song of Songs of King David. Joining both texts and after an evolution that already begins at the end of the Gothic period, we arrive at a very simple and recognizable typology that presents the Virgin on the lunar quarter, with the stars on her head and dressed in light (with a halo on the head only or on the whole body), normally dressed in white and blue in allusion to purity and eternity (although she can also appear in red and blue, in relation then to the Passion), her hands on her chest almost always and represented young as a general rule.