Old Master Paintings & Spanish Colonial Art
Lot 373:
Oil on canvas, canvas measures: 93 x 78 cm. The Shepherd as a symbol of Christianity dates back to the time of Paleo-Christianity, and is already used in the Roman catacombs. Although its use was of popular origin, the Church accepted the parallelism of Christ as a good shepherd and that of his Mother as a shepherdess who watches over and intercedes for the human race, represented by the sheep, which they guard against the devil and sin. In 1703, under the dress and appearance of a shepherdess, the heavenly Lady appeared to the Capuchin Isidore of Seville and asked him to be honored under this image. Erected as the patron saint of the Capuchin missionaries of Catalonia, this new iconographic type of the Divine Shepherdess soon spread throughout all the Spanish regions and her possessions in America.
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