The Mourning Virgin

This figure almost certainly formed part of a small devotional Crucifixion group. The lack of movement in the stiff drapery implies that the figure cannot have been made in Spain any later than about 1630.

Painted wood figures and reliefs of sacred subjects was the most common type of sculpture in Spain from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Many were made for large-scale altarpieces, although some smaller figures, like the present piece, were also in demand for devotional purposes.