Novo-Hispanic school. Mexico. 18th century. Stabat Mater Dolorosa, iuxta crucem lacrimosa'. Oil on canvas. Measurements: 69,5 x 54,5 cm. Devotional and catechetical canvas, creating the effect of an altarpiece of Our Lady of Sorrows. In a central oval, and as the base of a Christ on the cross, 'stabat Mater Dolorosa', mother Mary remains under the cross of her crucified Son. The painting is clearly devoted to Mary. Six angels of the Passion surround the cross: two weeping angels are at his feet, with the symbols of the Passion; two fly with scrolls reading respectively: 'Christi sub cruce Mater erat' (The Mother of Christ was under the cross), and 'Maria pendens fuit in cruce Christi' (Mary was hanging on the cross of Christ). Both texts are from 'Epigramatum Libri 3', a book written by Jacob Biderman, a Jesuit priest, and published in 1620 with ingenious religious epigrams in the manner of the classical writer Martial. Of the two remaining angels, one has the book EPs (a reference to the Epigrams) and the other holds an hourglass, symbol of the inevitable passing of time, of death and the end of time on earth, a clear allusion to the souls in flames. Under the Virgin of Sorrows are the blessed souls in purgatory: as their lives transition, they take the Virgin as their 'ascent and mediator' in their sufferings (which they compare with their own and know 'they are heard') and look towards the final horizon (clean and close after the cross) to Christ who suffers on the cross and who crowns everything. In short, the Christian theology of, 'one must suffer to reach glory'. The presence of a heraldic coat of arms flying in the upper right-hand corner is a clear reference to the person who commissioned the work, the owner or donor of the painting.