The Assumption of the Virgin

Fray Alonso Franco tells us in his chronicle that Alonso López de Herrera executed these paintings when he was a novice. The aspiring friar, who emigrated to New Spain from Valladolid around 1609, possessed a solid grounding in painting and his archaizing style, clearly influenced by the Flemish school, is closely linked to that of his birthplace. These two panels, along with another one showing Christ’s Ascension, presently in the collection of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), belonged to the main altarpiece of Saint Dominic’s church in Mexico City, which the painter executed between 1624 and 1625. Apparently The Assumption of the Virgin occupied the central place, while the other two works were located to the left and right of it in the side aisles. The pieces set out to remind us of the purity of the bodies of Christ and of the Virgin Mary -the former as an incarnation of God and the latter as the vessel in which Jesus took shape- which hence deserved to be conserved after death, an aim fulfilled by their ascent to heaven, the former by itself and the latter with the help of the angels. Though the Assumption of Mary, narrated only in the Apocrypha, became Catholic dogma in 1950, devotion to Her was widespread in all the realms of the Spanish crown, as attested to by the many convents that were dedicated to Her in New Spain.These works passed to the MUNAL from the San Diego Viceregal Painting Gallery in the year 2000.