PERUVIAN, CUZCO SCHOOL, 18th Century

Virgin of Loreto (Nuestra Señora de Loreto)

Oil on canvas
41 ⅛ x 61 ⅞ inches (104.5 x 157 cm)

Provenance:

Private Collection, Paraguay, ca. 1940–2022; from whom acquired by:
Private Collection, Asunción, Paraguay, 2022–2025.

The house of the Virgin Mary—where Mary was born, where she received the visit from Gabriel announcing the birth of Christ (the Annunciation), and where she raised Jesus—was located in Nazareth according to the New Testament. Legend has it that in 1291, the house, threatened by Muslim soldiers, was miraculously transported by angels to a hill at Tersatto (present-day Trsat) in Croatia. The house immediately became a site of pilgrimage, but as bandits roamed the area, in 1294 the house was again flown by angels to safety, this time across the Adriatic to woods outside the city of Ancona in the Italian Marches. In 1296 it finally acquired a permanent home nearby in the hill-town of Loreto. 

The original house was later surrounded by a marble screen designed by Bramante, now enshrined within a Basilica that is one of the most visited Christian sites in Europe. Within the house was a wooden sculpture of the Virgin holding the Christ Child, said by the faithful to have been made by Saint Luke, but more reasonably thought to have been sculpted in the 15th century. That statue, known as “Our Lady of Loreto,” was considered by the faithful to be miracle working. It acquired an additional distinction in 1920 when Pope Benedict XV declared it the “Patroness of Air Passengers and Auspicious Travel.” The original sculpture was destroyed by fire the next year, but a replica was made and dedicated the following year. 

Veneration of the Virgin of Loreto became widespread in the Hispanic world, both in Iberia and the New World. In the present painting of the Cuzco School, the subject is transformed, with a combination of imagery depicting the translation of the house and that of the sculpture of “Our Lady of Loreto” with its iconic image of the standing Virgin in an elaborate dress, holding the Christ Child in her left hand—both crowned—with images of the house below. Angels fill the scene, both celebrating the Virgin with music and carrying building materials (stones and planks), referencing the miraculous relocation of the holy home. The cavernous hill behind the Virgin refers to the Cave of Nazareth. Traditionally, the Virgin’s home was said to consist of three walls in front of the Cave of Nazareth, which also was regarded as a holy pilgrimage site on which a basilica was built. The IHS (in hoc signum) inscribed on the small bell hanging on the cave to the left of the Virgin is a symbol of the religious order of the Jesuits, who played a key role in spreading devotion to the Virgin of Loreto—suggesting a possible Jesuit context for the production of this painting.