Granada school of the first half of the 18th century. "Immaculate Conception". Carved wood, polychrome, glued cloth. Silver crown. In exceptional state of conservation. Measurements: 108 x 39 x 30 cm. In this fantastic carving of round bulk the Virgin is represented in her invocation of Immaculate Conception. Mary is shown standing on the lunar crescent, in the centre of which the faces of three seraphs are arranged. Dressed in an ecru-coloured tunic, delicately polychromed with floral ornaments, and wearing a blue mantle with embroidered ends edged in gold, the Virgin joins her hands in prayer, which gives the mantle a naturalistic play of folds. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders and back, and the features of her fine face and long neck add a notable elegance, stylising her bearing. A delicately worked silver crown adds to the subtlety and distinction of the whole. As was typical of the Granada school of the Golden Age, the realistic reproduction of the details does not detract from the delicacy of the forms and the serenity of the face, inheriting the Classicist influence. The Granada school, which was strongly influenced by the Renaissance period, included great figures such as Pablo de Rojas, Juan Martínez Montañés (who trained in the city with the former), Alonso de Mena, Alonso Cano, Pedro de Mena, Bernardo de Mora, Pedro Roldán, Torcuato Ruiz del Peral, etc. In general, the school does not neglect the beauty of the images and also follows naturalism, as was usual at the time, but it would always emphasise intimacy and recollection in delicate images which would be somewhat similar to the rest of the Andalusian schools in another series of details but which do not usually have the monumentality of the Sevillian ones. The work can be inscribed, specifically, in the stylistic circle of the Mora workshop (José and Diego). This was one of the most important workshops in Granada in the 17th century. The artistic legacy of this family of image-makers, which spanned from the last third of the 17th century to the second half of the 18th century, was a milestone in the Granada school. Influenced by the work of both Alonso Cano and Pedro de Mena, his influence led him to create a very personal and characteristic style. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception defends that the Virgin was conceived without Original Sin, and was defined and accepted by the Vatican in the Bull Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December 1854. However, Spain and all the kingdoms under its political dominion defended this belief earlier. Iconographically, the representation takes texts both from the Apocalypse (12: "A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman wrapped in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars") and from the Lauretan Litany recited after the rosary and containing epithets of Mary taken from King David's Song of Songs. Combining the two texts, and following an evolution that began at the end of the Gothic period, we arrive at a very simple and recognisable typology that presents the Virgin on the lunar quarter, with the stars on her head and dressed in light (with a halo on her head only or all over her body), normally dressed in white and blue in allusion to purity and eternity (although she can also appear in red and blue, in relation then to the Passion), her hands almost always on her breast and generally depicted as a young woman.