Page 170 - The mystery of faith

Fig. 3 Guadalajara (1692).9 The gilded foliate decoration bordering the
Fig. 4 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.

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