Our Lady of the Snows

Our Lady of the Snow or Virgin of the Snowis is an oil painting on painted wood about 1509-11 by the painter of Flemish origin active in Portugal in the period of Manueline Francisco Henriques for the Church of St. Francis (Évora) and which is currently in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon.The Church of St. Francis belonged to the Franciscan Convent of Évora but served the Royal Palace that was adjacent to it being understandable that the royal family wanted to dignify it because it attended liturgical celebrations when it was in this city, which in the second Portuguese dynasty was frequent. And so it was that between 1508 and 1512 Francisco Henriques took charge of the decoration of this Church, which included, in addition to the Polyptych of the High Altar, large panels for the side chapels with various invocations and the painting Our Lady of the Snows integrated in this campaign. The painting Our Lady of the Snows, which is a rare iconographic theme in Portuguese art, suffered cuts in its initial dimension, but its general composition with the Virgin of the Snows remains visible in a foreground, on a larger scale, leaving the background free to narrate two episodes linked to the history of this devotion and the legend of the foundation of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, in Rome.