Attributed to Padre Jesuíno of Monte Carmelo (Santos, São Paulo, 1764 - Itu, São Paulo, 1819)

Attributed to Padre Jesuíno of Monte Carmelo (Santos, São Paulo, 1764 - Itu, São Paulo, 1819) ‘The Virgin Mary reading with the Carmelite coat of arms’. Oil on canvas. 143 x 111 cm. Exquisite representation of the Virgin of Carmel, crowned as a Queen, and on a stage where the air is still, she emerges between curtains, like a lighted candle of faith. Full of the virtues that Pius XII declared she had on February 11, 1950: "humility, chastity, mortification, prayer, and, above all, a sign and reminder of our consecration to Jesus Christ and to her, an effective sign of holiness and a pledge of eternal salvation". The author paints this image inavery Flemish style: with extreme detail on the hair, brocade, cloak and shields that are jewels, also on the crown and the habit. There are bright colours in the middle of this cold range of browns. Mary readswith an exaggerated and almost rigid gesture, the highly ornamentedfabrics she wears also look rigid. She hasa very stylised figure...and looks downwards, knowingly ...., it almost seems more like a painting from Bruges. She is depicted as a "Saint Rose of Lima" (see lot 72 of this catalogue) in position, placement of hands, reading of the book of hours, rigidity and mantle...substituting the Creole headdress fora Queen's crown, looking downwards, with the idea ofimbuingthe mother of God with humanity, "as one more". Finally, we move on to the stage, which is very convent-like, with sober,gathered curtains, also in Carmelite tones and semitones. It could well bethat a Carmelite convent was the place this painting was first destined for . The first Carmelite foundation in Latin America took place in 1580 in Olinda (Pernambuco), when it was a Province of Portugal. Other foundations were made all over Brazil, so that a century later, in 1685, the large Vicariate of Brazil was divided into the commissariats of Rio de Janeiro and Bahia-Pernambuco. Both became Provinces in 1720. Some houses of the Province of Bahia-Pernambuco embraced the Strict Observance and were constituted as a Province with the title of ‘Pernambuco’ in 1744. The Virgin's face with slanted eyes and swollen eyelids, the geometric decoration of the habit, the crown used in other paintings (such as those published by the modernist artist Mario de Andrade) and the clear link to CarmoConvent, lead us to this attribution.