Our Lady of Guadalupe with a Donor

Little is known of the life of Pedro López Calderón beyond the fact that he lived between the last third of the 17th century and the first third of the 18th, as evidenced by his first and last canvases, dated 1681 and 1734. Having reached the rank of master painter, and settled in Mexico City, he devoted his artistic skills to a particularly extensive and varied pictorial oeuvre, as well as mother-of-pearl inlay, a little-known aspect of his despite being one of just eight known recorded artists working in the “enconchado” artform.

The commission of the small-scale canvas we are presenting here, whose version of the portrait with donor stands as one of the most unsual expressions of devotion for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Despite being an essentially autochthonous form of devotion, which appeared early, it reached its height as an artistic representation during the 18th century, a period to which we would date the creation of this work.