Follower of Carlo Maratta. Spanish school of the XVIII century.

Follower of CARLO MARATTA (Camerano, 1625 - Rome, 1713). Spanish school of the XVIII century.
"Immaculate Conception".
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
Measurements: 53 x 69 cm, 66 x 81 cm (frame).

This work represents the Virgin Mary conceived without original sin, iconography fully established in Spanish painting since the seventeenth century and widely spread during the eighteenth century. The figure is represented in an ascending attitude, with her arms open and her face elevated, wrapped in a heavenly atmosphere of clouds and brightness, underlining her immaculate and glorious character. Around her head there is the characteristic halo of stars, an iconographic attribute that alludes to her purity and her condition of Queen of Heaven.

The Virgin wears pink tunic and greenish blue mantle, colors of strong symbolic charge associated with humanity and divine grace, treated with a soft modeling and a fluid brushstroke that confers lightness to the figure. The movement of the draperies, as well as the dynamic arrangement of the arms, give the composition a marked sense of elevation and spirituality, reinforced by the warm and atmospheric background, resolved with delicate tonal transitions.

From the stylistic point of view, the work reveals a clear dependence on the compositional and formal models spread by Carlo Maratta and his circle, characterized by a serene classicism, with Roman roots, in which the ideal of harmonic beauty, compositional clarity and a contained devotional emotion are combined. These models, widely disseminated through engravings and copies, exerted a notable influence on Spanish religious painting in the 18th century.

This type of compositions, destined both for the domestic sphere and for private or conventual worship, enjoyed enormous acceptance in 18th century Spain, reflecting the deep Marian devotion of the country and the assimilation of the classicist languages of Italian origin. The work can be ascribed, therefore, coherently to the Spanish school of the 18th century, in the orbit of a follower of Carlo Maratta, both for its iconography and its formal and technical language.