Miguel González
The Education of the Virgin (La educación de la Virgen)circa 1698

On view: David Geffen GalleriesThe Iberian World: From Spain to Spanish America

Horizontal narrative painting with warm gold tones showing a grand interior hall filled with approximately fourteen sleeping women in colorful robes, with ornate gilded architectural details and a winged angel scene visible through an arched opening to the left

Oil painting detail on a gilded ground, depicting a kneeling figure in white robes with head bowed and hands clasped, attended by two winged angels in red and gold garments; an ornate reliquary casket floats upper left, framed by gilded foliate borders.

Detail of a panel painting showing an ornate dark cartouche containing two stone tablets with inscribed text, draped with red cloth over a wooden stand, flanked by decorative vessels, set against a gold-toned wall beside a gilded border with acanthus scroll ornament.

Oil painting detail, golden-toned interior scene with four women in robes gathered around an open book with red binding; two seated figures lean over the text while two younger figures crouch below, rendered in cream, ochre, and red with crackling varnish surface visible throughout.

Painting on a gold-toned ground, two women in draped classical dress seated together examining an open book, with additional figures in the foreground and a robed figure ascending steps in the background; rendered in warm reds, greens, and cream with fine linear detail.

Detail of a painted work on a translucent or varnished surface showing three seated figures in Renaissance-era dress gathered around an open book, rendered in warm golden, green, and red tones with fine linear detailing; additional reclining figures and a carved architectural column visible in the background.

Oil painting detail, two seated figures in flowing robes examining an open scroll with visible script, rendered with fine linear outlines and warm golden tones; additional draped figures and an open book visible in the background.

Artist or Maker: Miguel González
Mexico, circa 1664/66-after 1704
Title: The Education of the Virgin (La educación de la Virgen)
Date Made: circa 1698
Medium: Oil on canvas on wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl (enconchado)
Dimensions: Unframed: 33 1/8 × 49 3/4 in. (84.1 × 126.4 cm); framed: 38 1/4 × 55 1/4 × 3/4 in. (97.16 × 140.34 × 1.91 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2012.52
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Miguel González’s Education of the Virgin was probably part of a larger set devoted to the life of the Virgin. The subject of Mary’s education in the temple of Jerusalem with other virgins had no scriptural basis; it was described in medieval apocryphal texts and became popularized in German, English, and French books of hours. González was attuned to Flemish prints of the Virgin sewing in the temple and to the seventeenth-century upsurge in Seville of images of Saint Anne teaching the Virgin to read (see M.2019.235). This domestic scene suggested that learning was an activity appropriate for women, which contributed to its popularity across the Iberian world, especially in convents.

Among the most dazzling paintings invented in New Spain were those encrusted with small sheets of mother-of-pearl (or concha de perla), known as enconchados. The application of this material, which endows paintings with a unique glow, references a range of Asian decorative arts that flowed in through various trade networks. The genre reached its apogee from roughly 1680 to 1700, and González was among its most salient practitioners. With their mixed technique, the opalescent enconchados stood at the juncture of global trade, religious fervor, and colonial invention.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Private collection, Florence; Marchese Francesco Reale, Rome, c. 1940–50; by inheritance to his son, Rome; Christie’s, New York, May 22–23, 2012, lot 36; LACMA, 2012.
Selected 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.
Selected Exhibition History: Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

Related Exhibitions

Miguel González
The Education of the Virgin (La educación de la Virgen)circa 1698

On view: David Geffen GalleriesThe Iberian World: From Spain to Spanish America

Artist or Maker: Miguel González
Mexico, circa 1664/66-after 1704
Title: The Education of the Virgin (La educación de la Virgen)
Date Made: circa 1698
Medium: Oil on canvas on wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl (enconchado)
Dimensions: Unframed: 33 1/8 × 49 3/4 in. (84.1 × 126.4 cm); framed: 38 1/4 × 55 1/4 × 3/4 in. (97.16 × 140.34 × 1.91 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2012.52
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: Miguel González’s Education of the Virgin was probably part of a larger set devoted to the life of the Virgin. The subject of Mary’s education in the temple of Jerusalem with other virgins had no scriptural basis; it was described in medieval apocryphal texts and became popularized in German, English, and French books of hours. González was attuned to Flemish prints of the Virgin sewing in the temple and to the seventeenth-century upsurge in Seville of images of Saint Anne teaching the Virgin to read (see M.2019.235). This domestic scene suggested that learning was an activity appropriate for women, which contributed to its popularity across the Iberian world, especially in convents.

Among the most dazzling paintings invented in New Spain were those encrusted with small sheets of mother-of-pearl (or concha de perla), known as enconchados. The application of this material, which endows paintings with a unique glow, references a range of Asian decorative arts that flowed in through various trade networks. The genre reached its apogee from roughly 1680 to 1700, and González was among its most salient practitioners. With their mixed technique, the opalescent enconchados stood at the juncture of global trade, religious fervor, and colonial invention.

Ilona Katzew

2024
Provenance: Private collection, Florence; Marchese Francesco Reale, Rome, c. 1940–50; by inheritance to his son, Rome; Christie’s, New York, May 22–23, 2012, lot 36; LACMA, 2012.
Selected 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.
Selected Exhibition History: Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 12, 2022 - October 30, 2022
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024