82 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



There was an odd fancy about the beginning 

 of the eighteenth century to represent the Virgin 

 Mary as La Divina Pastor a feeding her sheep 

 with roses. The original picture with this 

 title was by Alfonso da Tobar." He found 

 imitators both in Spain and France, and in 

 Southern Spain the popularity of the subject 

 still persists. There is a plastic group, nearly 

 life-size, in the Church of S. Catalina in Cadiz. 

 The Virgin is dressed a la Watteau with a 

 beribboned crook and a rose- wreathed hat. 

 She feeds with roses and lilies the sheep and 

 lambs gambolling round her knees; an almond 

 tree flowers above, and the Christ-Child, dressed 

 as a small shepherd boy, stands in front. It is 

 all pink and white, gay and dainty, in a corner 

 of the austere whitewashed convent chapel 

 which has Murillo's beautiful ' Marriage of 

 Saint Catharine ' above the altar. A similar 

 group, but more dignified in type and less frivo- 

 lous in detail, is in the Church of the Holy Trinity 

 at Cordova. They are strange artificial flowers 

 of that gloomy growth, Spanish Art. 



' The Prado, Madrid. 



