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Lot Essay
The feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was celebrated as early as the sixth century when it was believed the event had taken place in the city of Ephesus, while other apocryphal stories claim that Mary’s life ended in Jerusalem. Thus, surrounded by the Apostles and in her own house and having fulfilled her mission in life, the Mother of God was assumed, body and soul, into heaven where she was crowned by God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. By the eighth century, Pope Leo IV sanctioned the feast of the Assumption although it would not become official doctrine until the middle of the 20th century. The early medieval period saw the remarkable rise of an extraordinary devotion to the Virgin Mary which coincided with the edification of great cathedrals throughout Europe.
Images of the crowning of the Holy Virgin began to appear in the thirteenth century as painters and sculptors represented the Virgin being crowned not just assuming a holy throne. The proliferation of the iconography of the Virgin through numerous depictions not only as Mother of God but also Mother of Mankind and Queen of Heaven was a celebrated theme by great masters both anonymous and renowned such as Gentile da Fabriano, Fra Angelico, in the Quattrocento, and later masters such Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez and the Jesuit Bernardo Bitti who lived and worked in Lima in the late sixteenth-century. More importantly, this imagery was a potent symbol of the Church and its Counter-Reformation assault against heresy. Their renderings influenced the native artists in the cities of the Spanish colonies such as Cuzco, Lima and Quito. The local artists working in the Andean cities also embraced a powerful visual composition, an inverted triangle wherein the Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit appear to place a crown on the Holy Virgin who now embodies the Ecclesia Triumphans or the Catholic Triumphant.
Characteristic of the Cuzco artist was a delight in depicting the mystic with grace, beauty and resplendent in their glory, especially the Mother of God. They relished in the use of decorative elements such as floral details and their prolific application of gold to embellish the richly brocaded and embroidered garments and attributes such as crowns, orbs, and scepters of the Divine personages. The central figure is the Virgin Mary clothed in blue mantle with gold flowers and white gown of purity surrounded by ecstatic angels who prance with joy and sing of her virtue and holiness as Queen of Heaven.
Margarita J. Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Images of the crowning of the Holy Virgin began to appear in the thirteenth century as painters and sculptors represented the Virgin being crowned not just assuming a holy throne. The proliferation of the iconography of the Virgin through numerous depictions not only as Mother of God but also Mother of Mankind and Queen of Heaven was a celebrated theme by great masters both anonymous and renowned such as Gentile da Fabriano, Fra Angelico, in the Quattrocento, and later masters such Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez and the Jesuit Bernardo Bitti who lived and worked in Lima in the late sixteenth-century. More importantly, this imagery was a potent symbol of the Church and its Counter-Reformation assault against heresy. Their renderings influenced the native artists in the cities of the Spanish colonies such as Cuzco, Lima and Quito. The local artists working in the Andean cities also embraced a powerful visual composition, an inverted triangle wherein the Holy Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit appear to place a crown on the Holy Virgin who now embodies the Ecclesia Triumphans or the Catholic Triumphant.
Characteristic of the Cuzco artist was a delight in depicting the mystic with grace, beauty and resplendent in their glory, especially the Mother of God. They relished in the use of decorative elements such as floral details and their prolific application of gold to embellish the richly brocaded and embroidered garments and attributes such as crowns, orbs, and scepters of the Divine personages. The central figure is the Virgin Mary clothed in blue mantle with gold flowers and white gown of purity surrounded by ecstatic angels who prance with joy and sing of her virtue and holiness as Queen of Heaven.
Margarita J. Aguilar, Doctoral Candidate, The Graduate Center, City University of New York