Virgin and Child
Bolivia
Oil on panel, iron U nails
18th century
Height 13 1/4" Width 9 1/4" including frame
Provenance: J Frederick Caine, St Petersburg FL
The iconography in this image serves as bookends to the Life of Christ: His birth and His death by Crucifixion. The Virgin sits nursing the Holy Baby (Virgin Lactans) at the foot of the Cross, where she would, more than three decades later, mourn His passing. The small iron U-nails on the surface (above the Virgin’s head and to the right of the Child’s halo) probably served as anchors for the faithful to hang small devotional ex votos of metal in prayer for recovery of a body-part illness, or in gratitude for a miracle.
Bolivia
Oil on panel, iron U nails
18th century
Height 13 1/4" Width 9 1/4" including frame
Provenance: J Frederick Caine, St Petersburg FL
The iconography in this image serves as bookends to the Life of Christ: His birth and His death by Crucifixion. The Virgin sits nursing the Holy Baby (Virgin Lactans) at the foot of the Cross, where she would, more than three decades later, mourn His passing. The small iron U-nails on the surface (above the Virgin’s head and to the right of the Child’s halo) probably served as anchors for the faithful to hang small devotional ex votos of metal in prayer for recovery of a body-part illness, or in gratitude for a miracle.
Bolivia
Oil on panel, iron U nails
18th century
Height 13 1/4" Width 9 1/4" including frame
Provenance: J Frederick Caine, St Petersburg FL
The iconography in this image serves as bookends to the Life of Christ: His birth and His death by Crucifixion. The Virgin sits nursing the Holy Baby (Virgin Lactans) at the foot of the Cross, where she would, more than three decades later, mourn His passing. The small iron U-nails on the surface (above the Virgin’s head and to the right of the Child’s halo) probably served as anchors for the faithful to hang small devotional ex votos of metal in prayer for recovery of a body-part illness, or in gratitude for a miracle.