Spanish school; end of the XVII century.

Spanish school; late seventeenth century.
"Immaculate Conception".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
It has a period frame.
Measurements: 100 x 73 cm; 110 x 83 cm (frame).
In this work the author captures a typically baroque image of the Immaculate Conception, Mary appears standing, dressed in white tunic, with the mantle of the usual sky blue. A very delicate halo, composed of the twelve stars that represent the tribes of Israel, covers her head, with a low gaze. She stands on a pedestal of clouds, with a crescent symbolizing in the immaculist iconography the chastity of Diana and the Christian victory against the Muslims. It is an image of great clarity, alluding to Mary's victory over Original Sin. The figure stands out on a background of grayish tones, a break of glory closed with clouds clusters worked with great illusionism among which numerous child angels appear, mostly worked in golden tones, reflection of the divine light.
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).