Granada School; 18th century.
"Virgen de las angustias".
Oil on canvas. Re-drawn.
It presents slight faults.
Measurements: 131 x 101 cm; 136 x 127 cm (frame).
The Virgin of Anguish shows the body of her son on the altar to the faithful. This image is framed by the cross from which a shroud hangs. The representation of Our Lady of Sorrows is similar to that of the Pieta, but in the case of the patron saint of Granada, her image does not follow the moment in which Mary receives the body of her son.
Given the importance given to religious images in the Hispanic world, during the 17th and 18th centuries ambitious pictorial series and extensive iconographic programmes were created for churches and convents, as well as printed prints, medals and reliquaries for private devotion. Taken as a whole, regardless of their size or medium, these images fulfilled the aim of sacralising everyday life beyond the altars.
Among this wide repertoire we would like to highlight those painted replicas of a particular devotional sculpture, whether of a Christ or a Virgin, which technically recreate their original location as well as showing the figure in question. These painted copies were called "true portraits" or vera efigie, an artistic phenomenon of prolific production in the viceroyalty of New Spain and the European metropolis.
They are oil canvases, painted in great detail and with a realistic intent. These paintings were intended to make the viewer believe that he was in the presence of the effigy itself. In a historical sense, we understand painted replicas as a means of affective substitution of religious sentiment in the absence of the original sculpture.