The Immaculate Conception (after Murillo)
Alonso Miguel de Tovar (Madrid 1678 – Madrid 1758)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1698 - 1758
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1041 x 787 mm (41 x 31 in)
Place of origin
Madrid
Order this imageCollection
Tyntesfield, North Somerset
NT 20940
Caption
The Immaculate Conception is from the teaching of the Catholic Church which says that the Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of Original Sin. This was represented frequently in Baroque painting and one of the earliest proponents was Murillo in Seville, Spain. The iconography derives from St John the Evangelist’s description of the Woman of the Apocalypse ‘a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars in his Revelation 12:1-4 and 14. On the right two angels are holding the Marian attributes of purity, a palm and roses and look at each other as they float on clouds and behind them another holds an olive branch whilst on the left another angel looks out holding a bunch of lilies. The Virgin looks heavenwards, with her hands in prayer, against a golden light.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Immaculate Conception (after Murillo) by Alonso Miguel de Tovar (Madrid 1678 – Madrid 1758). A copy after the original by Murillo of around 1665 called 'of El Escorial' which is now in the Prado, Madrid. Tovar was painter to the Spanish court of Philip V.
Provenance
Don Romero Balmaseda, Seville, bought by Manuel Williams with Henry Hucks, later Lord Aldenham (1819-1907) in 1853 for £5.7.0 and hung at 16 Hyde Park Gardens until 1890; purchased by the National Trust from the estate of the late George Richard Lawley Gibbs, 2nd Baron Wraxall (1928 – 2001) with the assistance of the NHMF, Art Fund and donations from members and supporters in 2002
Credit line
Tyntesfield, The Gibbs Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Alonso Miguel de Tovar (Madrid 1678 – Madrid 1758), artist