Madrid School; beginning of the XVIII century.

Madrid School; early eighteenth century.
"Immaculate Conception".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 23.5 x 18 cm; 28 x 23 cm (frame).
Devotional image, alluding to the victory of Mary over Original Sin. The figure stands out on a golden background, a break of glory closed with clusters of clouds 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).