Spanish or Novo-Hispanic school of the 18th century

Spanish or Novo-Hispanic school of the 18th century.
"Virgin of Refuge".
Oil on zinc plate.
Needs restoration.
Measurements: 25 x 17 cm; 30 x 24 cm (frame).

The image shows Mary and the crowned child, in a maternal scene, of great tenderness, known as the Virgin of the Refuge of the Sinners. It is a title of Mary that refers to one of the invocations of the Lauretan litany, which alludes to the excellencies of the Virgin, conformed around the Holy House of Loreto. The origin of the devotion to this Virgin is found in the last years of the 17th century in Italy, in the town of Frascatti, near Rome. According to tradition, a Jesuit priest named Antonio Valdenucci wished to have an image of Mary to be his companion, guide and teacher in the missions, to act on his behalf by reforming the customs of the natives, arousing devotion and attracting Mary's favors upon his devotees. Thus, he commissioned from a little known painter a copy of the "Virgin of the Oak", whose bas-relief was found in Poggio. Although the painter was a minor, the copy was so beautiful that it was considered a miraculous event, and therefore a work of a sacred character. The priest thus had what he had asked for, and the work was placed in his tabernacle, where it would travel to village after village on the new American continent, where it was disseminated and copied under different versions, until it returned to its place of origin in Frascatti.
The work achieved an extraordinary success within the territory of New Spain, becoming one of the favorite devotional works of the aristocracy as well as of the lower classes and the indigenous people. The devotion to this image took root from the first moment in the cities of Puebla, Zacatecas and the Bajío; a sample of its implantation in Puebla is that, in the last decades, there were already about seventy niches with this image in the streets of the city. This devotion had as a consequence that the Virgin of Refuge became one of the most treated and valued iconographies in the Mexican school, especially by the masters José de Alcíbar and José Páez. In fact, two versions of the latter are preserved, very close to the canvas we present here.