Virgen de la Consolación (Virgin of Consolation)
- Vicente Luciano Talavera, Mexican, 1715
- Born: Puebla, Mexico
Vicente Luciano Talavera, Virgen de la Consolación (Virgin of Consolation), after 1730. Oil paint on canvas; 63 × 38¼ in. David and Boo Butler, Lorraine and Harley Higbie, Carl Patterson and Alianza de las Artes Americanas in honor of Dr. Donna Pierce, 2015.540.
Many Spaniards brought their home devotions with them to the Americas and propagated them there. This painting shows a statue of the Virgin of Consolation as it sat on an altar in a church in the town of Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain. It was executed in the city of Puebla, Mexico, likely commissioned by a Spaniard from Jerez and probably based on an engraving of the original image. It shows the white marble statue of the Virgin dressed in red and blue and holding the Christ Child in her lap. She is seated on a pillow on a cart being pulled by two oxen, an allusion to the fact that the statue was discovered at sea by a crew of sailors and was transported to Jerez by oxcart.
The statue is depicted within the niche of an altar screen designed by Andrés Benitez in 1537 in the convent church of Santo Domingo in Jerez. The black and white emblem of the Dominican Order is visible at the top of the painting. The artist, Vicente Luciano Talavera (born in 1715), is from a family of well-known painters in Puebla, founded by his father, Cristóbal. While little is known of his biography, several of his paintings can be found in the collection of the University of Puebla.
– revised by Kathryn Santner, Frederick and Jan Mayer Fellow of Spanish Colonial Art, 2023