Created in the Spanish-ruled Viceroyalty of Peru, Our Lady of the Remedies of La Paz (Oil on canvas, ca. 1750) blends elements from European and South American traditions.
Recent Acquisition
Museum purchase through the Richard M. and Rosann Gelvin Noel Fund
2018-1-1
Feathers—here the Andean ostrich feathers in Mary and Jesus’s crowns—were associated in the Andes with sacredness and Inca royalty and in Europe ostrich eggs symbolized Christ’s Resurrection.
While images of Mary were widespread in the Spanish Viceroyalties, this devotion relates to a miracle-working image in the city of La Paz, in present-day Bolivia. According to tradition, a drunken gambler named Pedro Cañizares Pizarro attacked a painting of the Virgin and Child after losing at cards. First, he slashed Mary’s face in the painting. When he went to attack the image of Jesus, a miracle happened: the painted image came to life and Mary said “not him!” Covering the baby Jesus’s face with her hand, Mary was cut a second time and the painting then bled from the wounds. Witnessing this, Pedro repented and became an Augustinian friar.
Curated by Maureen Warren, curator of European and American Art
