Our Lady of Lake Titicaca

Our Lady of Lake Titicaca may refer to Our Lady of Copacabana, a city in Bolivia where a church on the shores of the aquamarine waters of Lake Titicaca was completed by 1576 on a small hill sacred to the region’s indigenous people. There, the Temple of the Sun had been a shrine for the Inca but with the arrival of the Spanish, these holy sites were often transformed into Christian churches. Conversion to Christianity only added another sacred layer to the already rich mystical traditions of the Inca and provided yet another divinity, Our Lady of Copacabana, who could aid them with their daily lives. This small portrait of the Virgin Mary within a familiar setting to the natives is partly inspired by the prevalent devotion to their local spiritual mother—or Pachamama, Mother Earth. To the various peoples of the Andes, the goddess of fertility and harvest, also embodies the natural world and as such the concept of “oneness” with the land is paramount to their beliefs.
The Virgin Mary as a protectess or patrona of a natural region is a popular subject in Christian art. (1) Throughout the Spanish colonies, the landscape is often the setting for numerous interpretations of the Virgin Mary such as the Virgin of Guadalupe in the Hill of Tepeyac, Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre, and Our Lady of Copacabana, among others. This lovely painting in the Collection of James Li is most likely based on a known Cusqueño painting of Our Lady of Lake Titicaca, sold at Christie’s, London in May 1993, and demonstrates the interest in a powerful feminine figure who is an earthly mother and omnipresent.