Our Lady of Guapulo Stamps

Description

The U.S. Postal Service will dedicate a Christmas stamp featuring a detail of “Our Lady of Guápulo,” an 18th-century oil painting.

Stamps Background:

The 2020 traditional Christmas stamp depicts details of the painting of Our Lady of Guapulo on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It goes on sale at U.S. post offices nationwide on Oct. 20.

CLEVELAND (CNS) — A new postage stamp for Christmas shows a detail from an 18th-century Peruvian painting of Our Lady of Guapo.

The ornate image of Mary holding the infant Jesus by an unknown artist in Cuzco, Peru, is from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The U.S. Postal Service will release the stamp at post offices nationwide on Oct. 20.

“Enrobed in a pyramidal gown speckled with jewels and holding a scepter woven with roses and leaves, a crowned Virgin Mary looks down at a similarly adorned Christ Child in her left arm, A red rosary ropes across the center of her dress and down to her right.” the U.S. Post wrote in its description of the stamp.

The image is framed in a gray metallic border. The word “Christmas” appears in black lettering across the top.

The museum’s description of the painting said the “richly dressed and adorned sculpture depicted in this work originated as a copy of the Spanish Virgin of Guadalupe, commissioned in 1584 by a confraternity of merchants in Quito (Ecuador).”

Guapo is a parish of Quito, nearly 2,000 miles away from Cuzco. It also is home to the Our Lady of Guapulo Franciscan Sanctuary built in the second half of the 17th century.

The painting is named for the sanctuary “where the miracle-working image was venerated,” the museum said, adding that “it was invoked by devotees who sought the Virgin Mary’s aid and protection.”

During the last quarter of the 17th century, a painted copy of the sculpture was carried throughout the Andes on a mission to gather alms for the construction of a new sanctuary, resulting in a demand for locally produced copies like this one by a Cuzco painter,” the museum’s description said.

The painting from which the stamp image was cropped shows the full length of Mary, who is holding a rose, an emblem of her deep love of God, according to Catholic tradition. It includes the framed faces of six cherubs looking out from the bottom of the artwork.

The stamp will be sold in a double-sided pane of 20.

The U.S. Post issues traditional Christmas stamps showing Mary and Jesus every two years.

The stamp is one of 17 that the U.S. Post is releasing for the end-of-the-year holiday season. One issue shows 10 winter scenes while another depicts brightly colored secular Christmas icons inspired by folk art traditions updated in bright colors.

Designs include a prancing reindeer with antlers, an ornament tied with a bow, a tree topped with a star and a stocking holding a teddy bear, and a sprig of holly in red, green, and white.

Other stamps mark Hanukkah, which begins the evening of Dec. 10, and Kwanzaa, which is observed Dec. 26-Jan.1.

Art director Greg Breeding designed the Our Lady of Guapulo Stamps.

Our Lady of Guapulo Stamps is being issued as a Forever stamp, which will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail 1-ounce price.

Shipping Info

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It normally takes 1 business day for us to process your order. Forever Stamp Store® products are all new, and products are rigorously inspected before being shipped. If there is any damage during the shipping process, please contact us promptly for replacement.