Antonio de Torres
Sacred Conversation with the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Shepherd (Sacra Conversación con la Inmaculada Concepción y el Divino Pastor)1719

Not on view

Oil painting with four haloed religious figures: a woman floating on a lily, a bearded shepherd on a stone bridge with sheep, and two white-robed figures in a landscape, signed and dated 1719

Oil painting of a standing female figure in white robes and flowing blue mantle, hands clasped in prayer, encircled by a golden halo and ring of eight stars, standing atop a white lily bloom above a landscape with a rising sun and river.

Oil painting of a full-length standing male figure in brown robes and a blue mantle, barefoot, holding a tall staff in one hand and a rosary in the other, with a radiant halo and a landscape background.

Oil painting of two figures in white religious habits against a landscape with trees and cloudy sky. A haloed male figure at right holds a red heart and a cross; a female figure at left wears a medallion at her chest, with a small white lamb at her feet.

Detail of an oil painting showing four white sheep near a stream, one rearing upward and three drinking or grazing at the water's edge, with a staff and robed figure partially visible above; Latin script signature and date 1719 in lower right.

Artist or Maker: Antonio de Torres
Mexico, 1667-1731
Title: Sacred Conversation with the Immaculate Conception and the Divine Shepherd (Sacra Conversación con la Inmaculada Concepción y el Divino Pastor)
Date Made: 1719
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Unframed: 22 13/16 × 33 1/16 in. (57.9 × 84 cm); framed: 27 7/16 × 37 3/8 × 1 in. (69.69 × 94.93 × 2.54 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by the Bernard and Edith Lewin Collection of Mexican Art Deaccession Fund
Accession Number: M.2020.7
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Latin American Art
Curatorial Notes: This imaginative painting depicts a rapturous vision of a Conceptionist nun wearing a prominent badge on her chest. She engages in a sacred conversation with Saint John of the Cross, the famed sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, as she hands him her kindled heart. To the left, the Immaculate Conception blossoms from a giant lily (symbolic of her purity), while Christ is portrayed as the Good Shepherd in the center. The bridge symbolizes the mystical passage, implying that the nun’s ecstasy and communion with the saint was aided by Mary and her son.

From exhibition Archive of the World, 2022 (for more information see the catalogue entry by Ilona Katzew in the accompanying publication, cat. no. 17, pp. 110–13)
Provenance: Possibly the Pazo A Freiría, Puebla de Trives, Galicia, Spain; family of José Antonio Quiroga y Piñeyro (1931–2020), Galicia, by the 19th century; antiquarian David Sanesteban Maceira, La Coruña, Spain, 2019; Palau Antiguitats (Albert Martí Palau), Barcelona, 2019; Caylus Anticuario SA, Madrid, 2019; LACMA, 2020.
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. 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. October 20, 2023 - January 28, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024
Archive of the World: Art and Imagination in Spanish America, 1500–1800. June 22, 2024 - September 08, 2024

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