Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe)

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Acquired Yesterday: Our Lady of Guadalupe

Who isn’t familiar with the iconic image of Our Lady of Guadalupe? She is without question one of the most revered and reproduced images of the Christian world. According to tradition, in 1531 the Virgin appeared to the Indian Juan Diego on three different occasions, asking him to visit Bishop Juan de Zumárraga so he could build her a chapel at the hill of Tepeyac, north of Mexico City. At first, the bishop refused to believe Juan Diego, but when he unfolded his cloak filled with the rare flowers that the Virgin had sent as proof, and revealed her miraculously imprinted image on Juan Diego’s tunic, the bishop fell to his knees and begged the Virgin for forgiveness. According to tradition the image imprinted on the Indian’s cloak is the same icon still venerated today at the Basílica of Guadalupe in Mexico City, which continues to attract millions of pilgrims each year.

Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe)

Mexico, 1691
Paintings
Oil on canvas
Unframed: 71 7/16 × 48 9/16 in. (181.5 × 123.4 cm); framed: 82 1/4 × 60 1/4 × 3 1/2 in. (208.92 × 153.04 × 8.89 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund (M.2009.61)
Not currently on public view

Provenance

Manuel Herrero Palacios, director of Galería Quixote, Madrid; Galería Coll & Cortés, Madrid, 2009; LACMA, 2009.

Label

Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most reproduced images of the Christian world.

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Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most reproduced images of the Christian world. This copy by Antonio and Manuel de Arellano depicts the Virgin surrounded by four vignettes, which narrate her appearances to the Indian Juan Diego in 1531 and the unveiling of her miraculous image imprinted on his cloak.

To meet increasing demand for reputable copies, the Mexican artist Juan Correa (c. 1645–1716) produced a waxed-paper template that enabled painters to accurately reproduce the design. This accounts for the comparable dimensions of some copies, despite variations of style and details. The Arellanos added the inscription “touched to the original” (tocada a la original) to emphasize that their copy was endowed with the power of the true relic.


From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Jeanette F. Peterson in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 5, pp. 45–49)
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Bibliography

  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
  • Katzew, Ilona, ed. Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800: Highlights from LACMA’s Collection. Exh. Cat. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: DelMonico Books/D.A.P., 2022.
  • Ilona Katzew, “Acquired Yesterday: Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Unframed, June 25, 2009, https://unframed.lacma.org/2009/06/25/just-acquired-our-lady-of-guadalupe.

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Exhibition history

  • Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
  • Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 6, 2011 - January 29, 2012
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
  • Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800 Nashville, TN, Frist Art Museum, October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
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