Pedro Ramírez, 1668 - The Marriage of the Virgin (Desposorios del la Virgen) - fine art print

Detailed product specifications

This more than 350 years old work of art The Marriage of the Virgin (Desposorios del la Virgen) was made by the artist Pedro Ramírez in 1668. The 350 years old work of art measures the size 75 5/8 × 50 3/8 in (192,09 × 127,95 cm) and was made with the techinque of oil on canvas on wood panel. Furthermore, the artwork can be viewed in in the digital art collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art. With courtesy of: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (www.lacma.org) (public domain license).Creditline of the artwork: . The alignment is in portrait format with an aspect ratio of 2 : 3, which implies that the length is 33% shorter than the width.

Available material choices

For every fine art print we offer a range of different materials & sizes. We allow yout to choose among the following variants:

• Aluminium dibond: An Aluminium Dibond print is a material with an outstanding depth. A non-reflective surface creates a contemporary impression. The Aluminium Dibond Print is the excellent start to fine replicas with aluminum. Colors are luminous and vivid in the highest definition, the details of the print are clear and crisp.
• Printed poster on canvas material: A poster is a UV printed flat cotton canvas paper with a slight structure on the surface, that reminds the original masterpiece. Please note, that depending on the size of the poster print we add a white margin of something between 2-6cm round about the painting, which facilitates the framing.
• Canvas print: A printed canvas material applied on a wooden frame. A canvas creates a particular impression of three-dimensionality. Hanging a canvas print: A canvas print has the advantage of being relatively low in weight, which implies that it is easy to hang up your Canvas print without additional wall-mounts. That is why, a canvas print is suited for all types of walls.
• The acrylic glass print: A glossy acrylic glass print, often referred to as a print on plexiglass, will change your favorite original artwork into gorgeous décor. With an acrylic glass fine art print sharp contrasts as well as minor artwork details will be exposed with the help of the precise tonal gradation. Our real glass coating protects your chosen fine art print against light and heat for between four and six decades.

Legal note: We try our utmost to depict our products as exact as possible and to demonstrate them visually on the various product detail pages. Still, the pigments of the printing material and the printing may vary somehwat from the image on the monitor. Depending on your settings of your screen and the quality of the surface, not all colors are printed as exactly as the digital version shown here. Bearing in mind that all the art reproductions are processed and printed by hand, there might as well be slight deviations in the exact position and the size of the motif.

Article background information

Details about the original piece of art

Structured artist information

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Original artwork specifications from the museum (© Copyright - Los Angeles County Museum of Art - Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Notes from the Curator: Pedro Ramírez descended from a prominent family of sculptors and altarpiece-makers. His father, Pedro Ramírez El Viejo (d. 1679), was born in Seville and immigrated to Mexico City where he achieved great success, as attested by the wealth he amassed at time of his death. Pedro Ramírez El Mozo (1638–1679), was already born in Mexico City. Regretfully we do not know much about his early training, which possibly took place either in Mexico City or Puebla, where he married and settled for some time before returning to the viceregal capital. His work is characterized by stark contours, firm modeling and a high degree of naturalism. One of his most characteristic traits is his brilliant handling of light and shade, which impart his compositions with a sense of depth and theatricality.

The subject of the Marriage of the Virgin is based on apocryphal accounts of the event in the Golden Legend, a thirteenth-century collection of the lives of saints by Jacobus de Voragine. Though the subject was represented in Europe (e.g., Durer and Raphael), on the whole it was rare in Spanish Golden Age painting (one notable exception is Francisco Pacheco's scene of 1588 for the Iglesia de la Anunciación in Seville). Curiously, the subject seems to have gained more currency in New Spain where it was taken up by some of the best brushes of the time: José Juárez (c. 1585–1639); Luis Juárez (c. 1586–1639), and Sebastián López de Arteaga (1610–1652), the latter whom came to Mexico from Seville in 1640. In the early eighteenth century, the famous Cristóbal de Villalpando also rendered his own version.

The simple composition depicts the Jewish high priest in the center, flanked on either side by the holy couple. Joseph holds the flowering staff to symbolize that he was chosen by God to marry the Virgin. Among the most striking details are the priest's hands, with every knuckle clearly drawn, as well as the realism of his facial expression. The scene is presided over by the Holy Ghost, beautifully rendered within a circle of light, as two majestic hands descend from the heavens to embrace the couple and sanctify the union. This inclusion of God's hands is an unusual detail that recurs in the works of all the New Spanish painters mentioned above, but which is conspicuously absent from the Europeans models. It is possible that the artists shared a common visual source (either a print or a painting that is yet to be identified), but it is even more likely that they were looking at each other's work, demonstrating the significance of a local tradition of painting within Mexico itself. While several works by Ramírez have been identified throughout Mexico (including in Mexico City's cathedral), this is a remarkable example from the artist's small surviving oeuvre.

Ilona Katzew, 2010

Notes from the Contributor: Painting by Pedro Ramírez (Museum: Los Angeles County Museum of Art)