Page 91 - The mystery of faith

highly lauded by the artist’s contemporaries during his
lifetime. The Granada Cathedral council had
commissioned from Cano a lectern for the choir
(1655–1656), which the artist personally designed, as
well as overseeing its construction in wood, bronze and
coloured marbles. He then carved an Inmaculada (55
centimetres), which was polychromed and installed in the
vaulted niche of the tabernacle in one of the chapels.

Since 1614, the Inmaculista movement had gathered
strength, starting in Cordoba and Seville and spreading
throughout Spanish cities, until 1654, when Phillip IV
took a public oath swearing and defending the cult of the
Purity and Clean Conception of the Virgin Mary,
effectively mandating the image of the Virgin immaculate
in the visual canon of the church. Cano’s beautiful and
elegant example for the cathedral, with its modest scale
and high quality of execution was so praised by the
canons that they agreed to place the image in the major
sacristy, so that they could see it every morning, rather
than on the lectern where the view for its contemplation
might be impeded. This sculpture would originally have
had a clear white tunic and mantle painted celestial blue, Fig. 3
possibly with estofado decoration. However, due to later restoration, the tunic is now a clear greenish
white and the mantle an intense blue. This work became the archetypal model for the subject and
inspired successive sculptors in much the same way that manuscript and fresco representations of The
Life of the Virgin had provided models for painters. Subsequently Pedro de Mena carved two
Inmaculadas. One was a life-size composition made for the town of Alhendín (1656), in which the
Virgin stands upon a cloud formation with angels fluttering at her feet (Fig. 3). Her mantle hangs open
at the front and is gathered on her arms at both sides. The second version, which belongs to the
Granada archdiocese and is signed and dated 1658, reflects the influence of the Cano prototype: the
oval-shaped face with its pensive expression (the features however retaining a slightly greater realism),
the figure of Mary, enveloped in her mantle, with the ends gathered over her right arm; the silhouette
with its distinctive ‘spindle’ shape; the celestial blue of the mantle, decorated with estofado; and the
base formed of clouds and seraphim. In addition to these recognized features, Mena incorporated a
terrestrial globe, a dragon and flying angels.5 In his later Inmaculadas, made in the Malaga workshop,
Mena rid himself of Cano’s influence and pursued a more personal style. The sculptor Juan de Molla
also sculpted Inmaculadas based on the Cano Virgin, with the addition of some personalized details.

The quality of Cano’s Granada Cathedral Inmaculada (Fig. 2) has been so highly rated as an
outstanding and singular artwork that historians have been reluctant to attribute further examples to
the artist, or to accept that the artist could have made other versions, either before or afterwards. Two

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