Spanish school; second half of the 17th century."Dolorosa".Oil on canvas.The original canvas is

Spanish school; second half of the 17th century.
"Dolorosa".
Oil on canvas.
The original canvas is preserved.
It presents faults and repainting on the pictorial surface.
It conserves the period frame.
Measurements: 65 x 46 cm; 78 x 60 cm (frame).
In this work, Mary is represented as the Virgin of Sorrows and Solitude, a theme very much to the taste of popular Spanish devotion, which would enjoy a great diffusion during the Baroque period, especially in the works destined for chapels and private altars. The subject is usually depicted as we see here, with the Virgin alone in the foreground, in a dark, undefined setting of an undoubtedly dramatic nature. The drooping eyelids, moistened by silent weeping, give the image an intense but restrained pathos. The chiaroscuro models the soft feminine features. In this particular case the figure of the Virgin is depicted with a dagger through her heart, an iconography which, although frequent in the presentation of the Virgin of Sorrows, is not always present. The figure of the Virgin, depicted bust-length and inscribed in an oval, is shown to the viewer in an absent manner, with her gaze fixed on an external area of the composition, thus showing herself immersed in her sorrow as a mother.
The work is characterised by the use of dark tones, to which the skin and part of the Virgin's cloth add luminosity. This resource is not only aesthetic, but also thematic, as it introduces the viewer and helps him to empathise with the pain of a mother, who in this case is not presented as the queen of heaven, but as a sufferer.