The Education of the Virgin

(Luisa Roldan)

LUISA ROLDÁN, CALLED ‘LA ROLDANA’
(Seville 1652 – 1706 Madrid)

The Education of the Virgin

Since the Middle Ages, scenes of Mary’s childhood education had been one of the favoured themes in narrative cycles illustrating the Life of the Virgin, particularly sculptural representations.
Mary’s Presentation in the Temple and, of course, the Annunciation remained popular subjects
well into the Baroque period, but scenes of the aged Saint Anne teaching her small daughter to
read enjoyed particular appeal, partly due to the intrinsic appeal of intellectual subjects in a time of mass illiteracy. Reading was specifically a pastime of the nobility, and the Virgin Mary, as Queen of Heaven was nothing if not noble. More to the point, the subject’s popularity was connected with the symbolism underpinning the Inmaculista movement that emerged in Seville during the early seventeenth century and advocated the concept of Mary’s innate purity. The infant Virgin was supposedly so exceedingly pious she had insisted that before entering the Temple her mother should teach her the scriptures. Later, at her Annunciation, Mary’s diligent study prepared her to actually comprehend the Archangel Gabriel’s words.
This charming, yet monumental group by Luisa Roldán follows the Sevillian Baroque iconography for the subject, with Mary, depicted as a small girl, standing by the seated Saint Anne, who holds a codex on her lap. Clearly transcribed on the open pages are the words of Gabriel’s announcement: ‘Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi […] quod nascetur ex te sanc[tum]’.2
From the second half of the seventeenth century artists often incorporated eye contact between the Virgin and Anne, to enhance the subject in both a sentimental and a pedantic sense. To achieve a similar effect, La Roldana, instead, employed a very compact composition arranged on a common base, following the example of the version her father, Pedro Roldán, made in 1670, which is now in the parish church of Santa Cruz in Seville (Fig. 1).3 The elder Roldán had made this piece to be included in the retablo bequeathed by Dona Ana Luna Ladrón de Guevara, whose will invested her executor, Captain Sebastian de Arria, to hire Bernardo Simón de Pineda as architect, Juan de Valdés Leal for the polychromy, and Pedro Roldán to sculpt images of the Saint Anne and the Virgin surrounded by ten putti and seraphim.4

The altarpiece was to be installed in the chapel dedicated to Saint Anne in the convent church of the Clerigos Menores fathers in Seville (now the parish church of Santa Cruz). Since the altarpiece was completed in June 1671, a time when Luisa was still employed in her father’s studio, it is possible that she assisted her father in his version of The Education of the Virgin.5

The present version by La Roldana is roughly one quarter smaller than Roldán’s sculpture, but shares the same composition and incorporates many of the same features, including the arrangement of Saint Anne’’s mantle, and the clear transcription of a relevant passage of scripture on the open book.6

La Roldana probably made this work during the early 1680s when she and her husband, Luis Antonio de los Arcos, were in Seville, or possibly even after 1684, when they had moved
on to Cadiz. Stylistically it is similar to some of La Roldana’’s small, polychrome, terracotta groups, which later became her signature works. Having been made completely independent of altarpieces with architectural decorations, these pieces were probably unique for the time, and with their inclusion of still life, furniture, flowers and animals almost prefigure Rococo porcelain groups. Two polychromed terracotta groups that date to the 1680s are an
Education of the Virgin in the collection of the Marqués de Perinat (Fig. 2), and a Rest on the Flight into Egypt belonging to the Condesa de Ruiseñada (Fig. 3). The head of Saint Anne in the first work and the head of the Virgin in the second both derive from models by Pedro Roldán and share the same oval face, framed by the mantle and featuring arched eyebrows, wide eyes with a slightly serious expression, tempered by a light smile of satisfaction on the lips, and a centre-parted hairstyle that marks the axis of the composition. Often the head of Saint Anne or the Virgin is tilted to one side, to avoid any impression of stasis in the pyramidal composition.

La Roldana paid considerable attention to detail, as may be seen in the sculpting of the chair, where Saint Anne’s weight depresses the underside of the chairs upholstery just as would have happened in reality. Another Education of the Virgin in polychromed wood in Cadiz, in the monastery church of Our Lady of Mercy (Fig. 4), also shows the same facial features, treatment of the mantle and pose of the head as the present Saint Anne. On the arched back of the elaborate gilded throne, upholstered in red with arms terminating in lion’s heads, is a single polychromed seraphim, perhaps included as a nod to La Roldana’’s signature cherubs that often bubble up en masse beneath her later terracotta groups, such as the Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist (1692),7 or the Virgin and Child with Saint Diego of Alcalá,8 and a Holy Family in Guadalajara (1692).9 The gilded foliate decoration bordering the draperies, as well as the pale green tints in Saint Anne’s mantle, are all later eighteenth-century additions, although the deep rose shade of Saint Anne’s robe and the Virgin’s white robe and blue mantle are typical of the polychromy found in La Roldana’’s work and probably original.10

1 This theological current met with particularly active support from the Dominicans, who accepted that since Mary’s very existence was predicated by God’’s decision to make his only Son incarnate, her immaculate state of grace was beyond question. Until 1854, when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined this elective belief as dogma, Spanish Baroque art was the foremost showcase for Marian subjects related to defending the Immaculate Conception, and among the most popular subjects was the Education of the Virgin.
2 Luke 1:35. As taken from the Clementine Vulgate Bible, the entire text reads:
Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te, et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi. Ideoque et quod nascetur ex te sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei’ (The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God).
3 Other versions of the subject place the figure of the Virgin on a separate base, possibly to stress her unique purpose, as seen in a version made by Juan Martínez Montañés around 1627–1630 for the church attached to the Convent of Saint Anne in Seville.
4 Later, around 1679 Roldán was contracted to make a retablo for the Carmelite Descalzes Convent of Santo Ángel de la Guarda in Seville. While the contract did not stipulate this subject, it is known that a version of The Education of the Virgin was included in the central part of the altarpiece. This work is now in the convent’s Church of Santo Ángel de la Guarda.
5 Luisa Roldán left her father’s Seville workshop in December 1671 when she married Luis Antonio de los Arcos and moved first to Seville and Cadiz, before settling in Madrid, where she was later appointed court sculptor (escultora de cámara) to Charles II in 1692.
6 In Roldán’s 1670 version, this appears to be an excerpt from Isaiah 9:2 (Populus qui ambulabat in tenebris, vidit lucem magnam; habitantibus in regione umbræ mortis, lux orta est eis).
7 Chicago, Loyola University Museum of Art, signed and dated 1692, terracotta with polychromy, gift of Mrs George C. Stacy in memory of William and Elizabeth Kehl, inv. no. 5-78.
8 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, c. 1690–1695, polychromed terracotta, inv. no. 250-1864.
9 Guadalajara, Museo des Bellas Artes.
10 It is quite common in Spanish Baroque sculpture for the polychromy to be updated or modernized, most particularly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Andrés González Moro, Seville, 1960; Juan Salas, Madrid