Our Lady of Solitude is the patroness of Oaxaca.
Our Lady of Solitude (Spanish: María de la Soledad) is a title of Mary (mother of Jesus) and a special form of Marian devotion practised in Spanish-speaking countries to commemorate the solitude of Mary on Holy Saturday. Variant names include Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Maria Santisima, Nuestra Señora Dolorosisima de la Soledad, and Virgen de la Soledad.
María de la Soledad's feast day is celebrated on December 18 in Spanish-speaking countries.
(Wikipedia)
María de la Soledad in Oaxaca dressed with with lace cloth.
The teaching that Mary intercedes for all believers and especially those who request her intercession through prayer has been held in the Church since early times, for example by Ephraim, the Syrian “after the mediater a mediatrix for the whole world. Intercession is something that may be done by all the heavenly saints, but Mary is seen as having the greatest intercessionary power.*
*Catholic Mariology>Wikipedia
A Marian Apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The figure is often named after the town where it is reported, or on the sobriquet given to Mary on the occasion of the apparition.
Marian apparitions sometimes are reported to recur at the same site over an extended period of time. In the majority of Marian apparitions only one person or a few people report having witnessed the apparition.
Official Catholic accounts claim that the Virgin Mary appeared four times before Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. The panels on the left and right in the image below represent the four appearances of the Virgin to Juan Diego.
(Wikipedia)
Reredos dedicated to the story of The Virgin of Guadalupe in Oaxaca, Mexico
The cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe appears to go back to the second half of the sixteenth century, although efforts to codify her origins only occurred in the mid-seventeenth, when a strong sense of Creole identity crystallized in New Spain. The story of her four apparitions to the pious Indian Juan Diego in 1531 are well known, as is the stubborn disbelief of Bishop Juan de Zumarraga until proof was brought in the form of Juan Diego’s mantle filled with extraordinary flowers that, once emptied out, revealed the image of the Virgin imprinted in the mantle.*
*The Arts in Lain America 1492-1820
Juan Diego by Miguel Cabrera, Museo Regional de Queretaro, Mexico
Devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe originated with the image miraculously impressed onto the garments of the Indian Juan Diego. The holiness of this image obliged all those painters who wished to copy it to reproduce it as exactly as possible, in many cases even respecting its original dimensions. Many painters used tracing techniques to ensure precision in details, and no painter felt capable of reproducing pictorially what the hand of God had made. When the new version was finished, it was “touched” to the original to transmit its miraculous properties to the copy. Starting in the seventeenth century, but especially throughout the eighteenth, cartouches were added to the corners of the image to narrate the apparition story.*
*The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820
Virgin of Guadalupe by Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (Mexican, 1713-c.1772)
Casta paintings were a new, secular art form primarily produced in eighteenth-century Mexico. A notable exception to the secular nature of the genre is Luis de Mena's 1750 painting of Virgin of Guadalupe with castas.*
About race, rather than the local hierarchies that the English word “caste” defines, there paintings addressed the complex racial mixing that occurred in viceregal society. From the moment of the Spanish conquest, miscegenation among the Spaniards, Africans, and Indians created a society of racial types, beginning with familiar ones such as mestizo (Spaniard and Indian) and mulato (Spaniard and African). The families depicted in casta paintings are shown in both indoor and outdoor settings, so that the genre provides a multitude of information about daily life in New Spain, including food, clothing, and entertainment. In their abundant details, these paintings sent a message to the mother country (for most of the series seem to have been intended for export to Spain) of the material wealth and natural abundance of the viceroyalty. In doing so, they reflect the growing consciousness of what it meant to be Mexican, and the emergence of a nationalism that would one day lead to independence. **
*Wikipedia
**The Arts in Latin America 1492-1820
Notes on Caste and Ethnic Identity in Modern Mexico
In Oaxaca, as in many other parts of Mexico, who one “is,” in terms of one’s social prominence or character, has everything to do with one’s origins, usually biologically understood. Such understandings may be vestiges of the colonial period, when social status was determined by legal caste designations premised on “racial” origins and informed by physical appearance and occupational status—to which were ascribed typical manners and morals.
Oaxacans of any “ethinc” background exhibit a strong affinity with their places of birth and will identify others in the same way. When asked for her “ethnic” affiliation, a person of indigenous origin is not likely to say “Zapotec” or “Mixe,” but, instead, to name the region or the town she is from. A person is a serrana (from one of the sierra regions of the state) before she is a oaxaqueña. This form of identification carries over into the national sphere, where politicians are always identified by the states they come from; such points of geographic origin are considered to be deeply significant aspects of their identities.*
*Days of Death, Days of Life by Kristin Norget, Columba University Press 2006