Our Lady Of Valvanera, Oil On Copper. Spain, 17th Century.

Our Lady of Valvanera, oil on copper. Spain, 17th century. Height: 20 cm - Width: 14.4 cm. Certificate by Govaert, 1986. Our Lady of Valvanera The Virgin of Valvanera is a Marian devotion originating from the Sierra de la Demanda, in La Rioja (Spain), a community of which she is the patron saint and one of the patron saints of the autonomous communities of Spain. The current image is a sculpture considered to be early Romanesque, dating from the end of the 11th century or the beginning of the 12th century. The Catholic Church commemorates the feast of this devotion on September 8. The appearance of the image is recounted in the Latin History, written in 1419 by Rodrigo de Castroviejo (Abbot of Valvanera), a translation of a 12th-century Latin text, probably written by Gonzalo de Berceo. It is said that the thief Nuño Oñez, upon hearing the prayer of his victim, repented of his crimes and entrusted himself to the Virgin Mary to help him change his life. One day, while he was praying, an angel appeared to him and told him to go to Valvanera in search of an oak tree that stood out from the others, at whose foot a fountain gushed forth and where several swarms of bees flowed, where he would find an image of the Virgin Mary. He went there with the priest Domingo and found the image. There, they began to build a place of worship dedicated to the Virgin, in the last third of the 9th century AD. This discovery gave rise to the monastery of Valvanera, where this image is venerated today, under the care of Benedictine monks. The canonical coronation of the image took place in Espolón de Logroño on October 15, 1954.