Fall from a Balcony

This painting is an ex-voto, a devotional image produced in gratitude to a saint or divinity for intervention in a dangerous situation. This type of picture dates back to the fourteenth century in Spain and Portugal and was brought to the Americas with Spanish settlers. Fall from a Balcony records a miracle that would be clear even without the carefully inscribed caption, which tells how, on February 22, 1803, Barbara Rico fell and dropped the young child in her arms several feet to the stone floor below. But through the intercession of the Virgin, the child landed completely unharmed.