Italian school; beginning of the XVIII century.

Italian school; early eighteenth century.
"Madonna and Child.
Carved and polychrome wood.
Measurements: 86 x 44 x 40 cm.
The carving that we present here is an iconography that combines the divine power and grace with the happy innocence and humble condition of God incarnate. The presence of the Virgin, in spite of the fact that none of the figures establishes visual contact between them, conveys the bond between Jesus and his mother, which allows Mary to act as an intermediary, as an advocate for the human race before Christ at the moment of the Last Judgment.
Spanish sculpture is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and its form of expression arose from the people and the deepest feelings that nestled in it. With the economy of the State broken, the nobility in decline and the high clergy burdened with heavy taxes, it was the monasteries, the parishes and the confraternities of clerics and laymen who promoted its development, the works sometimes being financed by popular subscription. Sculpture was thus compelled to embody the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when the counter-reformist doctrine demanded from art a realistic language so that the faithful would understand and identify with what was represented, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content to increase the fervor and devotion of the people. The religious subject is, therefore, the preferred theme of Spanish sculpture of this period, which in the first decades of the century began with a priority interest in capturing the natural, to progressively intensify throughout the century the expression of expressive values.