Madrid School of the third quarter of the 17th century. "Virgin of the Rosary". Oil on canvas in its original canvas. Presents tasting of cleaning. Frame of epoch with damages. Measurements: 125 x 88 cm; 132 x 95 cm (frame). The Madrid school arose around the court of Felipe IV first and Carlos II later, and it developed during all the XVII century, and even during the XVIII century, continued by the disciples of the painters of the previo century. Analysts of this school have insisted on considering its development as a result of the binding power of the court; what is truly decisive is not the place of birth of the different artists, but the fact that they were educated and worked around and for a nobiliary and religio clientele based close to royalty. This allowed and favoured a stylistic unity, even though there were the logical divergences due to the personalities of the artists involved. The origins of the Madrid school are linked to the accession to the throne of Philip IV, a monarch who made Madrid an artistic centre for the first time. This was an awakening of the nationalist conscience as it allowed a liberation from the previo Italianate moulds and a leap from the last echoes of Mannerism to Tenebrism. This was the first step of the school, which gradually progressed towards a more autochthono Baroque language linked to the political, religio and cultural conceptions of the Habsburg monarchy, before dying out with the first outbreaks of Rococo. The techniques mostmonly ed by these painters were oil and fresco. Stylistically, they started out from a naturalism with a notable capacity for synthesis to lead opportunely to the allegorical and formalplexity characteristic of the decorative Baroque. These artists showed a great concern for the study of light and colour, as we can see here, emphasising at first the interplay between extreme tones typical of tenebrism, which were later replaced by a more exalted and lumino colouring, reflected in late works such as this "Virgin of the Rosary". They received and assimilated Italian, Flemish and Velázquez influences. The clientele was a determining factor in the fact that the subject matter was reduced almost exclively to portraits and religio paintings.Dimensions: 125 x 88 cm; 132 x 95 cm (frame).