Francisco Zurbarán Workshop

Spanish School of the seventeenth century. Workshop of FRANCISCO ZURBARÁN (Fuente de Cantos, Badajoz, 1598 - Madrid, 1664).
"Virgin with child".
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 158 x 100 cm; 205 x 142 cm (frame).

The painting presents a very representative variant of the Virgin of the Rosary fused with the typology of the Virgin in celestial majesty. The Virgin Mary is shown enthroned on a cluster of golden clouds, enveloped in a halo of radiant divine light and surrounded by cherubic heads. She wears the traditional pink/reddish robe and a deep blue mantle with wide folds evoking transcendence and purity. In her right hand she holds a rosary, a key element of Marian devotion in Counter-Reformation Spain. The Child Jesus is seated firmly on his mother's lap, blessing with his right hand while holding the orb or salvator mundi (the globe topped with a cross) in his left, symbolizing his sovereignty over the world. The compact mass of yellowish, illuminated clouds that frames the scene is very characteristic of the mystical visions of the Spanish Baroque, designed to break the earthly space and take the viewer to a spiritual dimension.

The attribution to the workshop of Francisco de Zurbarán is stylistically very solid due to several formal characteristics appreciable in the canvas. One of the great signatures of Zurbarán's workshop is the monumentality of the clothing. The folds of the blue cloak are geometric, heavy and sculptural, almost palpable, an unmistakable feature of his workshop. Although the general illumination is more diffuse and celestial than the radical tenebrism of Zurbarán's early years, the soft but emphatic modeling of the faces and hands is maintained.
The Face of the Virgin: presents the perfect facial oval, the thin and arched eyebrows, the low and serene gaze, and the small and fiery lips that Zurbarán defined for his representations of the Virgin (very similar to famous works such as the Virgin of the Caves or his immaculates).
The dimensions of the piece confirm that it was a medium format altar painting, probably destined for a private chapel, a convent or a church in the provinces, commissions that the workshop of the master from Extremadura used to execute with great expertise under his direct supervision in Seville or Madrid.