The Immaculate Conception

In December 1661 Pope Alexander VII issued a decree supporting the belief that the Virgin had been conceived free of original sin. Spain had pressed Rome for that for decades. Madrid celebrated for weeks, and its painters had orders for years. This canvas is dated 1665. The Virgin stands in a blue mantle over a tunic shot with silver, a crown of stars above her, and around her ten angels carry the emblems that the Litany of Loreto, the list of titles chanted to her, attaches to her name. A palm, lilies, roses, an olive branch, a sceptre, a crown, a mirror. Antolinez signed and dated the picture on the base of that mirror, low on the left. He rebuilt the composition more than once, and the version at the Lazaro Galdiano museum, also in Madrid, carries the date 1666.