Spanish Colonial Sculpture

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The “Conquering Virgin.” The most famous sculpture in Spanish colonial New Mexico was La Conquistadora, the Conquering Virgin, reputed to be the oldest image of the Virgin Mary in the United States. In 1625 the friar Alonso de Benavides brought the small polychromed or painted-wood statue from Mexico to Santa Fe and placed it in the parish church of the Assumption of the Virgin. Today she resides in her own chapel in Santa Fe’s Cathedral of St. Francis. Because she holds the rosary in her hands, she is regarded as a Virgin of the Rosary.

Sculptural Technique. Because the painted and gilded wood statue was a collaborative work, it typifies Spanish and Spanish-colonial sculptural production. A sculptor carved the wood, which he then gessoed, filed, and smoothed. After the carving was finished, one painter executed the encarnación (flesh tones) of the figure while another painted the draperies, enriching them with gold leaf designs. Images such as this one, which was intended to be carried in procession, are called pasos. Because this image wears real clothing, it is also an imagen de vestir, or dressing image. Both are typical of Spanish and Mexican sculpture. Small processional Virgins dressed in elaborate gowns date back to the Spanish Middle Ages.

Popular Processions. After Friar Benavides brought the statue to Santa Fe, it became the focus of a Marian devotional confraternity, or religious brotherhood. During the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 the Spanish took the statue with them when they fled to the Guadalupe Mission at El Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juárez). In 1692–1693 the Spanish returned her to Santa Fe. Diego de Vargas, leader of the expedition to reconquer New Mexico, claimed to have won back Santa Fe with her protection. In 1694 the Spanish held a procession in appreciation of her aid during the reconquest. She was processed from her new shrine in the new parish church to the site of the Spanish military encampment outside the walls of the city. This procession, the oldest festival in honor of Mary in the United States, is re-enacted yearly in Santa Fe by descendants of the Spanish colonists.

Source

David J. Weber, The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1992).