Virgin of the Apocalypse c. 1680

Mattheus van Beveren made this ivory sculpture of the Virgin of the Apocalypse in the late 17th century. Van Beveren was a sculptor from Antwerp, a city in the Spanish Netherlands which, at this time, remained a Catholic territory. The sculpture shows the Virgin Mary standing on a globe with a snake coiled around it and the crescent moon beneath her feet, while holding the infant Jesus. This is the Virgin of the Apocalypse, a devotional image inspired by the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Mary is shown as the antithesis of the serpent, the original symbol of sin. The politics of imagery in the Catholic Netherlands were heavily shaped by its institutions. This sculpture is a symbol of Catholic identity, an assertion of the power of religious imagery during the time of the Counter-Reformation. To understand this work better, historians might research devotional practices in the 17th century and study theological interpretations of the Book of Revelation. The meaning of art is always contingent on its social and institutional context.