Our Lady of Mount Carmel
- Miguel Jerónimo Zendejas, Mexican, 1723 - 1815
- Born: Mexico
- Work Locations: Mexico
Miguel Jerónimo Zendejas, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 1772. Oil on canvas; 42 × 30 in. Gift of the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer, 2013.304.
The wealthy city of Puebla rivaled Mexico City during the colonial period as an artistic and cultural center. As a result, a thriving school of painting developed there with several familial dynasties of artists. Miguel Jerónimo Zendejas was one of Puebla’s most important painters in the 1700s. His father Lorenzo was a well-known printmaker in Puebla who traveled to Rome to study. Many of Miguel's paintings can be traced to engravings probably brought back from Europe by his father. According to art historian Manuel Toussaint, three of Miguel’s children also became painters.
This painting of the Virgin of Mount Carmel is inscribed with a dedication to the sergeant and soldiers of the 6th Army company under the command of Francisco Ruiz de Peña. The Virgin of Mount Carmel was the patron saint of the Carmelite order which has several convents in Puebla. She was also a favorite of the Franciscan order, the friars who missionized and administered the Puebla region.
In her role as intercessor between the faithful and God the Father, the Virgin was often represented in the Baroque era as youthful and accessible, a convention exemplified in the paintings of the Spanish artist, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Here the Virgin is depicted holding the Christ Child and wearing the Carmelite emblem on her chest. She and the child hold scapulars and the surrounding angels carry objects, such as a mirror and flowers, from the Songs of Solomon interpreted to symbolize the purity of the Virgin.
– Julie Wilson Frick, 2017; revised by Kathryn Santner, Frederick and Jan Mayer Fellow of Spanish Colonial Art, 2023
- Exhibited 2005, "Patronato, Painting from Baroque Mexico: Selected Works from the Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer," Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
- "Collecting a New World: Spanish Colonial Art from the Jan and Frederick R. Mayer Collection," Apr 2-May 14, 2005, Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy
- "From Viceregal to Verancular: Painting in Colonial Mexico and New Mexico," Nov 17, 2006-Apr 29, 2007, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, Santa Fe