After Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 19th century

Spanish school of the late nineteenth century. After BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO (Seville, 1617 - Cadiz, 1682).
"Immaculate Conception".
Oil on canvas.
Period frame.
Measurements: 90 x 48 cm; 101 x 58 x 5 cm (frame).
This painting tries to version with iconographic and formal fidelity The Immaculate of the Escorial of Murillo (conserved in the Prado Museum). The Virgin, characterized as an adolescent, beautiful and virginal, steps on the crescent moon while she rises towards the heavens surrounded by cherubs in foreshortening. The figures are integrated in the vaporous atmosphere, between luminous refulgences. Iconographically, the theme of the Conception is joined to that of the Assumption, alluding to the Glory of Mary. This same model, but with variations, was applied by Murillo in a variety of Marian paintings, which would enjoy great popularity, influencing Spanish painters of the Baroque and later periods. When Murillo established his model of the Immaculate Conception, the devotion to the Virgin was experiencing a great boom in Spain. Thus, the theme of the Immaculate Conception came to constitute one of the national identity signs of Spain as a Catholic country. It is one of the most genuinely local themes of Spanish Baroque painting, since our country was the main defender of this mystery, and the one that fought most insistently to make it a dogma of faith. In this context, numerous artists and intellectuals worked to build a clear iconography that would help to spread the Immaculate Conception, bringing together symbolism and popular fervor.