RELIEF OF SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN

HISTORY 

According to Layna Serrano, these reliefs used to form part of an altarpiece commissioned by Juan de Silva, the IV Count of Cifuentes , that was manufactured towards the end of the XV century on the occasion of the reformation work undertaken in the former shrine of  Our Lady of Bethlehem. The timeframe suggested by Didier, however, re-dates these altarpieces as having been manufactured mid-XV century, something that would mean that the initiative to acquire this piece would more than likely  have been taken by the 1st  Count of Cifuentes who shared the same Christian name as his grandson and died in 1464.

From there, the IV Count ordered the altarpieces to be moved to the convent of some Franciscan nuns where they were incorporated into a Baroque altarpiece dedicated to the worship of the same saint. On an undetermined date, they were installed on a Classicist altarpiece dedicated to the worship of the Holy Virgin of the Rosary in the Dominican convent in the same town. When the convent was closed in 1835, the altarpiece was moved to the parish church where it stayed until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 during which the main frame of the altarpiece and some fragments of the reliefs were lost