The Virgin of the Carmelitas

This painting would be the central table from a triptych devoted to Saint Emerencia, as written on the lower part of the frame, where it is possible to read, not without trouble, the name of the Saint. On the left side of the table, from the face of an angel with his hands extended in a giving gesture, it comes the inscription Haec visio ista significat (this vision has this meaning), written in Gothic letters. This works as an eloquent introduction to the represented scene, the vision of Saint Emerencia in mount Carmel.

The aim of this table was to show Saint Emerencia not only in the prophetic role reserved to Saint Elisabeth, but also as a feminine version of the Tree of Jesse, proving Jesus an offspring from King David's lineage and the immaculated character of his divine birth.

The defence of the Mystery of the Blessed Virgin is intimately related to the Carmelite Order, and it was transmited from the 15th century from several texts that told the history of the Saint, which is the central argument of this piece painted towards 1500: the Hagiography of Saint Emerencia, the texts of John of Oudewater, around 1945, and reprinted in 1680 in the Speculum Carmelitanum by Daniel Virgine María.