La Dolorosa Predilecta approaches the week of faith

The Eucharist gave way to a parade through the center of Aguere of a brotherhood that comes out on several occasions during Holy Week; not in vain, last Sunday he already did it accompanying the Cristo del Rescate. This group was founded in 1979 (the last time it toured the city before the coronavirus broke out and turned everything upside down, in 2019, it turned 40) and wears a “black tunic for the brotherhood of Piety and the Lignum Crucis, cap and sky blue cape for the Immaculate Conception, and a red sash is girded around the waist by the Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament”, as described on the website of the Board of Brotherhoods and Brotherhoods of La Laguna.

«Considered the favorite of its author, José Luján Pérez from Gran Canaria, the image was donated to the church of La Concepción in April 1803 by the Portuguese Felipe Carvalho Almeida, a native of Madeira. Since then, the effigy presided over the cults that the Brotherhood of the Blessed Sacrament celebrated every Friday of Sorrows, ”explains the portal about this outstanding carving of Holy Week in La Laguna.

Now, it could be that in the denomination there is more legend than history. At least that is what emerges from the article Dolorosas by Luján Pérez in Holy Week in La Laguna, by the art historian Juan Alejandro Lorenzo Lima and published in the book A sword will pierce your soul: the Virgin of Sorrows, art and devotion in La Laguna. Lorenzo Lima states in the aforementioned work that José Luján Pérez lived in the house of Felipe Carvalho Almeida, «a Portuguese sailor who had settled in La Laguna a few years before, where he obtained great popularity for his mercantile activities». Carvalho and his wife, Ana Olivera, were the ones who gave La Concepción the image of this Dolorosa. The texts of the time, the historian explains, show that Felipe Carvalho was an important collector.

«Specifically, the effigy was shown to the brothers in the general meeting of April 11, 1803, and since then they have shown great interest in it. In the same meeting they even expressed their desire to place it in one of the altarpieces of the parish and that it begin to be worshiped as soon as possible, ‘as possible’ to the Brotherhood”, collects the article, in which is added: «A few months later, in January 1804, the steward of the brotherhood commissioned the goldsmith Diego Calderín to make his silver dagger, a piece that –like the sculpture of the Virgin- could be blessed in the functions of the Friday of Sorrows of that same year of 1804».

Beyond the quality of the carving and the devotion it has generated over time, the link between Carvalho and Luján Pérez, on the one hand, and the attachment between the author and the work, on the other, are not so clear. . Lorenzo Lima explains it this way in Dolorosas de Luján Pérez in Holy Week in La Laguna: «(…) The documents investigated do not detail a contact between the artist and the client to commission the work, or –even less– the attitude adopted by the Carvalho himself, who ‘after much insistence got the sculptor to give it to him’. Perhaps, some stories from the 19th century and the subsequent biographies of the image maker have exaggerated a lot in this aspect or in the relationship that Luján had with this Portuguese merchant, since we do not know of her references in notarial deeds, chronicles, letters or newspapers of the time» .

The text continues: «In the same way, as far as possible, the attention that the Gran Canarian sculptor paid to the effigy should also be studied, a piece –we insist– very significant in his catalogue. This fact – like others, not documented and spread by popular tradition – has allowed the sculpture to obtain the highly esteemed nickname of Predilecta, although it is likely that this name is due to other reasons, and not necessarily to a special interest of the artist in the piece. In addition, let us not forget that this type of story –something very common in effigies with devotional success– coincides with other images of contemporary artists or with some works made by the artist himself».