The Virgin of Madrid c. 19th century

Curator: This is Hippolyte Louis Garnier's "The Virgin of Madrid," housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It has a dreamy, almost ethereal quality. All those cherubic faces swirling around her, like she's floating on a cloud. Curator: Well, she is standing on a crescent moon, a traditional symbol for the Virgin Mary representing her triumph over darkness. I wonder about the material of that moon, and the labour behind the engraving. Was it a team effort, or a singular vision etched into metal? Editor: Perhaps it speaks to our own longings for purity, the yearning for something untouched by the messy realities of life? It's a comforting image, in a way, to imagine such transcendence. Curator: I am more interested in the labor required to produce such images, and the social context in which they were consumed. But I agree, there’s a beauty in the craftsmanship. Editor: For sure. Still, the beauty and the labor... I think they feed each other here, intertwining the earthly with the divine.