La Divina Pastora de las Almas (The Divine Shepherdess of Souls)

La Divina Pastora de las Almas (The Divine Shepherdess of Souls) is an oil painting of clear academic inspiration, dating from the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It is housed in a broad, water-gilded frame with gold leaf, richly carved with reinterpretations of Rococo motifs. The composition is based on the engravings that spread this devotion, which originated in Seville in 1703 through the Venerable Capuchin friar Fray Isidoro de Sevilla.

Although the painting is not especially old, it is of moderately high quality. Over time, both the canvas and the gilded frame have darkened, making it difficult to appreciate its original colours and chiaroscuro, despite its well-executed sense of volume.

The composition differs noticeably from the traditional iconography by omitting the wooded area normally found on the left-hand side, as seen in the painting traditionally attributed to Miguel Alonso de Tovar and now attributed to Cristóbal López. Nevertheless, it preserves the principal iconographic elements described in La Pastora Coronada, published in 1705.

No signature is currently visible, although this was already common practice at the time the painting is believed to have been produced. However, the historian Don Juan Martínez Alcalde, in his well-known work Sevilla Mariana, records that during restoration work the painting was removed from its original location, allowing an inscription on the reverse to be read. It states: “This painting was donated by Doña María Emilia Repiso, whose wish was that it should never leave the Church of San Juan de la Palma in Seville. May she rest in peace. She died on 21 December 1942.”

He also recorded its dimensions as 190 × 130 cm. Thanks to this documentation, we know that the painting arrived at San Juan de la Palma during the 1940s, meaning that it was not affected by the looting of the parish in 1936.