Visitation

This painting belonged to a series on the life of the Virgin, executed for a private oratory. Cycles of paintings on the life of the Virgin were very common in 17th-century Spanish art. These series sometimes consisted of twelve scenes, one for each star, with each illustrating one of the twelve gozos or sung poems of Mary, just as each star reminded the believer to pray a Hail Mary. The present set is related to Madrid on account of a specific iconographic detail. In all these scenes the Virgin’s head is surrounded by a halo formed by the twelve stars of St John’s vision in the Apocalypse, as if it were a representation of the Immaculate Conception, whereas the other figures display the usual halos of unbroken lines. In the case of Mary this distinction is based on devotion to the Immaculate Conception and was very common in Madrid painting during the reign of the last Habsburg king.

The theme of the Visitation represents the visit paid by the Virgin, pregnant with Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth of Hebron, who is also pregnant with Saint John the Baptist, the Forerunner, to find out the truth of the words spoken by the archangel Gabriel in the Annunciation. The source for this theme is a passage from the Gospel of St Luke (1:39-56).