Our Lady of Aranzazú

The pious account tells about the apparition of Our Lady Mary in a hut to the shepherd Rodrigo Balzátegui, near Oñate, province of Guipúzcoa, Spain. The name of the devotion comes from the question which Balzátegui asked Mary in the Basque language: “Aranzazú?” which means, “You, in the hawthorn?”. The composition exactly recreates the piece from around 1700 by Cristóbal de Villalpando, a painter from New Spain, which possibly formed part of the chapel of the Convent of Saint Francis in Mexico City under the auspices of the brotherhood that cared for it, which was founded in 1681 by a group of Basques.