Virgin of Guadalupe (Virgen de Guadalupe)

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New Acquisition: Antonio de Torres, Virgin of Guadalupe

May 1, 2019

Our Lady of Guadalupe is without question one of the most revered and reproduced images of the Christian world. Legend has it that in 1531, just a few years after the conquest of Mexico, the Virgin appeared several times to the Indian Juan Diego at the hill of Tepeyac, north of Mexico City, and asked him to visit Bishop Juan de Zumárraga so he could build her a chapel on that location. At first, the bishop refused to believe Juan Diego, until he unfolded his cloak filled with extraordinary flowers, revealing the miraculously imprinted image of the Virgin. In awe, the bishop fell to his knees and begged the Virgin for forgiveness. According to tradition, the image imprinted on Juan Diego’s cloak is the same 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)

Antonio de Torres (Mexico, 1667-1731)

Mexico, circa 1720

Paintings

Oil on canvas

Unframed: 81 1/2 × 55 1/8 in. (207 × 140 cm); framed: 89 × 62 1/2 × 2 1/2 in. (226 × 158.75 × 6.35 cm)

Gift of Kelvin Davis through the 2014 Collectors Committee (M.2014.91)

Latin American Art

Not currently on public view

Provenance

María de Gracia López de Tejada, Carmona, Spain, c. 1850; by descent to multiple family members; Carteia Fine Arts, Madrid, 2013; LACMA, 2014.

Label

Legend has it that in 1531, the Virgin appeared to the Indian Juan Diego and asked him to visit Bishop Juan de Zumárraga so he could build her a chapel at the hill of Tepeyac, north of Mexico City.

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Legend has it that in 1531, the Virgin appeared to the Indian Juan Diego and asked 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, until he unfolded his cloak filled with extraordinary flowers, revealing the miraculously imprinted image of the Virgin. Although the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe goes back to the second half of the sixteenth century, her tradition was fixed a century later. In this version by Antonio de Torres, one of the best painters of the early eighteenth century in Mexico, the Virgin is depicted surrounded by four roundels illustrating her various apparitions to Juan Diego. The larger roundel at her feet depicts her new sanctuary (completed in 1709) at the hill of Tepeyac.

From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by JoAnna M. Reyes in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 9, pp. 61–64)

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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, “New Acquisition: Antonio de Torres, Virgin of Guadalupe,” Unframed, May 1, 2014, https://unframed.lacma.org/2014/05/01/new-acquisition-antonio-de-torres-virgin-of-guadalupe.

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Exhibition history

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