Bidspirit auction | PEDRO DE MENA WORKSHOP -

PEDRO DE MENA WORKSHOP - Possibly Andrea (1654-1734) and Claudia de Mena (1655-?) - Important large-scale Virgin of the Immaculate Conception in Glory - 18th-century Granada work. Total dimensions: 98 x 45 x 40 cm. Baroque sculptor, daughter of the universally renowned religious image-maker and precursor of Andalusian Rococo, Pedro de Mena. Trained in her father's workshop, she later entered the Cistercian abbey of Recoletas Bernardas de Santa Ana in Malaga in 1672, where Juana Teresa, the youngest of the sisters, would also enter years later. Very few works by this extraordinary female artist are preserved today. The convent of Santa Ana itself houses the candlestick images of Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard (ca. 1680) that can be attributed to the work of the two sisters. The Hispanic Society of New York owns two small busts of Ecce Homo and Mater Dolorosa (1675) signed by Andrea. The four sculptures mentioned above follow her father's models with a more precious treatment. REDER GADOW, Marion: “The Religious Mentality of Pedro de Mena through his Testaments,” in: Pedro de Mena and His Times (national symposium, April 5-6-7, 1989, Granada-Málaga). Málaga: Junta de Andalucía, 1990, pp. 179-193.