The Coronation of the Virgin
Alonso Cano (Granada 1601 - Granada 1667)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1652 - 1660
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2692 x 1676 mm (106 x 66 in)
Place of origin
Granada
Order this imageCollection
Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset
NT 1257079
Caption
The Virgin is in the sky and the Trinity is present. God the Father is placing a crown of twelve stars around her head and she holds the sceptre towards Christ. The dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost, is above. Cherubs hold aloft a sphere which may the moon, a symbol of the chastity of the Virgin, and others hold the Cross. The Virgin is seen here as the ‘Woman of the Apocalypse’ with features mentioned in the Bible in St John the Evangelist’s Revelations. They also refer to the Immaculate Conception, an important catholic cult in seventeenth-century Spain, that she too was conceived without original sin. The painting was bought by William Bankes (1786–1855) in Spain in 1814 from a convent in Granada, where the artist had returned to in 1652.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Coronation of the Virgin, by Alonso Cano (Granada 1601 – Granada 1667) and Studio, circa 1652.
Provenance
Acquired by William John Bankes, MP (1786-1855) from a convent in Granada, 1814; bequeathed by Ralph Bankes, 1981
Credit line
Kingston Lacy, The Bankes Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Alonso Cano (Granada 1601 - Granada 1667), artist
References
Wethey 1955 Harold E. Wethey, Alonso Cano, 1955, pp.94-5, 157 fig.163.