The Virgin and the souls of Purgatory, Pedro Machuca, 1517

This work is a curious version of the theme of the virgin of milk, a symbol of marian mercy that, in this case, serves to help the souls in purgatory. The theme of the virgin of the milk, and especially this derivation of that of the suffrage, a devotion above all italian and a christianized memory of juno and the milky way, was considered, with the counter-reformation, an unseemly image, so its representation declined at the end of the 16th century. Object Type: painting. Genre: religious art. Date: 1517. Dimensions: height: 167 cm (65.7 in); width: 135 cm (53.1 in). Medium: oil on poplar wood panel. Collection: Museo del Prado. Machuca-virgen-prado