Francisco Antonio Valléjo

In a distinguished private collection, Valencia, Spain, since at least the mid-19^th century.

This beautifully preserved signed and dated painting of The Virgin of Guadalupe is connected iconographically to the celebrated image of the Virgin Mary venerated since the sixteenth century and now housed in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The Virgin of Guadalupe holds a special place in the religious life of Mexico and is one of the most popular figures of religious devotion. In 1531, Juan Diego, a convert to Christianity, reputedly had a vision of the Virgin Mary at Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City. An image of the Virgin is believed to have appeared as a miraculous sign of her identity on the inside of his cloak (or tilma). Ever since then, the image has been the object of worship and its cult status has grown. 

The present painting shares many typological features with the image on cloth in the Basilica. Shown as a beautiful young girl, we see Mary as the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, wearing a crown and standing on a crescent moon. The hem of her robe and mantle are held by an angel, as if lifting her up weightlessly through clouds. A stylised almond-shaped aureole, or mandorla, represented here by radiating beams of light, emanates from the whole figure of the Virgin.

Francisco Antonio Valléjo was one of the leading painters working in Mexico during the mid to late 18th century. He received a number of important commissions from religious institutions, including mural canvases for the church of La Enseñanza in Mexico City, for the walls of the Sacristy in the chapel of the Colegio de San Ildefonso; and his great series of The Life of Saint Elias, for the monastery of El Carmen in San Luis Potosí. Valléjo was clearly gifted as a composer of monumental paintings, although the Virgin of Guadalupe shows he was also able to paint on a delicate scale, producing images for private devotion for a more domestic setting.

Valléjo was one of a small group of artists who took part in the examination of the precious image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the mid eighteenth century. Their opinions were published in a pamphlet of 1756 by one of the group, Miguel Cabrera (1695–1768), the most celebrated painter of his day. Such privileged first-hand study of the Basilica’s iconic image undoubtedly left a deep impression on the artist.

Valléjo’s painting has a number of subtle and delicately rendered features inspired by the original: the use of gold, the vibrant blue of the Virgin’s mantle, and the restrained – almost monochromatic – treatment of the skin tones. These aspects not only link our Virgin of Guadalupe to an icon that is both a national and religious symbol, they endow the image with an intensely devotional and precious character.