Vision of Beatriz da Silva: Virgin wears habit of the Conceptionists.

[Conceptionists] / [Beatriz da Silva] / Alexandre Voet. Vive la foy et Ordre de la Conception Immaculée de N. D. apparue en cest habit de son dict Ordre a la B Beatrix de Sylva fondatrice du mesme. S.l. [Antwerp]: A. Voet, s.a. [late 17th century]. [8.7 x 5.9 cm], [1] f. engraving on vellum, with contemporary hand-color, including gold & silver pigments. Well preserved, colors still fresh.

Unrecorded engraving by the Antwerp printmaker-publisher Alexandre Voet (1655-93)—here in an example printed on vellum and enhanced with contemporary hand-color, including gold & silver pigments—depicting Beatrice de Silva’s (1424-92) vision of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception wearing the very habit of the Order of nuns that Beatrice de Silva later was to found.

The engraved text at the foot of the print reads in translation: “Long live the faith and the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, who appeared in her habit of her said Order to the Blessed Beatrix of Sylva, founder of the same.”

Beatriz de Menezes da Silva, renowned for her beauty, was imprisoned by her jealous cousin, Princess Isabel of Portugal. While confined Beatrice experienced an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who told her that she wanted Beatrice to found a new Order in her honor. Beatrice escaped and took refuge in the Dominican convent at Toledo, where for 37 she lived as a lay sister. In 1484, Beatrice and companions were given a convent in Toledo by Isabella I of Castile. They first followed the Cistercian Rule, and then the Rule of St. Clare, before receiving recognition as a distinct Order—the Order of the Immaculate Conception, or Conceptionists—in 1511. She was canonized Pope Paul VI in 1976.

This subject is rarely encountered in devotional prints.

The use of vellum here is of note. Vellum was, compared to earlier periods, rather rarely used in 17th- and 18th-century drawing/painting/printmaking, e.g., by exceptional artists such as Rembrandt, who experimented with exotic supports to achieve subtle visual effects. “Vellum was otherwise only used in luxury book printing (a relic of medieval manuscripts) and, at the opposite extreme, for devotional images, as it was the only material strong enough to withstand the usage it received in the hand of the poorest of the faithful, who carried images of saints on their person as amulets” (Griffiths, p. 32, and see p. 379 for the 18th-century peddler trade of vellum holy images).

No copies of this print are located by OCLC or KVK, nor are they recorded at the University of Antwerp (Ruusbroec Institute Library) or at the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, which are the principal repositories of such prints.

* E.-H. van Heurck, “Les images de dévotion Anversoises,” De Gulden Passer, vol. 8 (1930), pp. 67-166, esp. p. 149-50 (on A. Voet); Anthony Griffiths, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820; José Félix Duque, O fuso e a trama: Santa Beatriz da Silva e a fundação da Ordem da Imaculada Conceição: Séculos XV e XVI; María del Mar Graña Cid, Beatriz de Silva (ca. 1426-ca. 1491).