Our Lady of Sorrows

1715-1725

Juárez, Nicolás Rodríguez (1667-1734)

Davenport, IA, USA, Figge Art Museum (current location)

This delicate, small painting of the Virgin Mary was meant to inspire reflection and contemplation, offering multiple points of contact between a religious figure and daily life. She is portrayed here as the Virgin of Sorrows, not as a young woman with a baby, but as a sorrowful mother who has lost her son.

The painting represents an actual statue of the Virgin Mary, installed upon a small altar. The Virgin’s outfit, a white tunic with a black mantle, is similar to a nun’s habit, thereby connecting her to other prayerful women. Draped around her neck, and hanging down her dress is a rosary, a mnemonic device used for prayers devoted to the Virgin. One set of rosary prayers were devoted to the “sorrowful mysteries” of Mary’s life, one of which was the death of Christ. The scene below, as Jesus’s dead body is put into his tomb, illustrates the source of the Madonna’s sorrow.

This oil-on-canvas painting depicts a revered statue of the Virgin, housed in Madrid. This work measures 16 x 12 ¼ inches (40.6 x 31 cm).

Like many other religious paintings, this one reproduces a revered statue, a 16th century sculpture of the Virgin in Spain. Devotion to this Virgin was disseminated through prints and paintings like this one. Throughout Spanish America, paintings depicting holy statues were familiar to many worshippers. The paintings, “Our Lady of Cocharcas under the Baldachin,” and “Christ of the Earthquakes,” also in Vistas, represent other examples.

Reproduced courtesy of the Figge Art Museum

Dana Leibsohn and Barbara E. Mundy.
Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820. http://www.fordham.edu/vistas, 2015.

Burke, Marcus. 1998. Treasures of Mexican Colonial Painting: The Davenport Museum of Art Collection. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Museum of New Mexico Press.

Ruiz Gomar, Rogelio. 2004. “Virgin of Solitude.” Painting a New World: Mexican Art and Life, 1521-1821. Donna Pierce, Rogelio Ruiz Gomar and Clara Bargellini, eds. Pp. 196-197. Denver: Frederick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial Art at the Denver Art Museum.