Pelican Feeding Its Chicks With Its Own Blood, Carved, Painted, And Gilded Wood, 18th-century Spain

A polychrome carved wooden sculpture depicting a pelican feeding its young with its own blood, a central motif in Christian iconography and a symbol of Christ in his redemptive and Eucharistic sacrifice. A reliquary capsule containing a blessed wax Agnus Dei, representing the crucified Christ, is integrated into the center of the breast. The sculptural treatment of the feathers, the expressive polychromy, and the strong symbolic charge of the composition link this work to the production of 18th-century Spanish or colonial sacred art, likely originating from the Ibero-American sphere. This type of object was intended for private devotion and domestic piety, combining sculpture and relic in a work of great theological and spiritual intensity. In its original condition. Materials: carved and polychrome wood; wax (Agnus Dei) in a reliquary capsule. Date: 18th century. Provenance: colonial cultural area. Condition: wear and loss of polychromy, signs of age consistent with its age.