  About the Artwork
  
  
  A member of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy in Segovia, Spain, Fray Eugenio Torices created this exquisite wax relief of the Virgin Mary who stands against a bright gold background, underneath a crown of twelve stars. Surrounded by a billowing celestial cloud of cherubim, she casts her eyes upwards to heaven. She appears radiant and pure as described by Tota Pulchra Es ("You are all beautiful"), an antiphon, or short chant, traditionally sung during the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, an observation that celebrates Mary's preservation from original sin at her birth. A popular belief and iconography in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain, the Vatican officially recognized this dogma in 1854.

In 1724, Spanish artist and writer Antonio Palomino praised Torices for his deft sculpting of pigmented wax into painterly devotional images.
  
  
  Title
  Tota Pulcra (Immaculate Conception)
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1690
  
  Artist
  Fray Eugenio Guitierrez de Torices
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1653 - 1709
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Spanish
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Colored wax, wire, glass, gold leaf, wood, painted wooden box, painted and gilded wooden frame
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 14 × 11 3/8 × 3 3/4 inches (35.6 × 28.9 × 9.5 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  European Sculpture and Dec Arts
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Coll &amp; Cortés LTD.
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  2014.40
  
  
  Copyright
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