During the 17th century, Spain witnessed a pictorial phenomenon born of the religious fervor of the Baroque and based on the representation of the so-called “divine trompe l’oeil”, a term first coined by the historian Alfonso Pérez Sánchez. Its main characteristic was the pictorial assimilation of sculptures with a long tradition of devotion, usually of Christ or the Virgin, as venerated on the altars of chapels and shrines. These works were visually deceptive, using perspective and the illusory effect of lighting and color to suggest a non-existent third dimension.

They tended to be executed in painstaking detail, with items of supposedly minor importance becoming more prominent, such as robes and cloaks, jewelry and crowns, lamps, torches, curtains, or vases, lending the paintings great theatricality, where the mysterious and transcendental took up residence, in an attitude that drew closely on the original images, whose worship was intertwined with divine grace, being fervently venerated by the faithful, who implored and pleaded for favors and intervention.

The “divine trompe l’oeil” aesthetic arrived in the Viceroyalty in the 17th century, though it did not develop fully until the 18th century. There were several paths leading to its assimilation. Most commonly, through an abundance of prints, either as illustrations in books or as loose sheets printed by the brotherhoods charged with popularizing their worship, and aimed at the faithful who, lacking economic resources, were unable to afford a pictorial depiction of the image. However, the specific case of Our Lady of Mercy followed a different, more unusual, and original path.

We need to go back to the origins of the Mercedarian Order, whose religious missionaries were charged with disseminating worship for this advocation of Our Lady. A triple Marian apparition, which took place in Barcelona in August 1218, simultaneously eclipsed the future founder of the Order, St. Peter Nolasco, the King of Aragon, James I The Conqueror, and the man of the cloth and jurist Raimundo de Peñafort. Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Mercy, urged them to  participate in generating compassion for the Christians being held captive by the Muslims, who still controlled part of the Iberian Peninsula at the time. The Order was recognized by Pope Gregory IX in 1235, with Our Lady named patron saint and guide in its mission, with devotion for her extending rapidly across Spain, France, and Italy.

Following the discovery of the New World, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain chose the Mercedarian Order, together with the Franciscan, Dominican and Augustinian Orders, for the first stages of Christian evangelization, due to their proven ability at diplomacy and negotiation between different religions, joining the crew on the second voyage undertaken in 1493. As a result, dissemination across the Americas was rapid, especially in the Viceroyalty of Peru, with numerous religious settlements scattered across its vast expanse.

Our Lady of Mercy, also known as the Pilgrim of Quito due to its itinerant history, is one of the most celebrated devotional images in Ecuador. The Mercedarian Order became established in Quito in 1537, three years after the city was founded, starting simply with the worship of a stone image of Our Lady. Tradition tells us, however, that the devotion’s stock really rose when the Emperor Charles V donated a sculpture of the Virgin. Its arrival was celebrated with great pomp and circumstance in the city of Quito, and it was placed in its original chapel, from which it started to perform the miracles that earnt its fame.

After the tragic earthquake of 1698, the Mercedarian monks intended to replace the damaged temple housing the image with a larger, more sumptuous building, in line with the great faith professed. The Virgin then began a lengthy pilgrimage in search of funding for the new church, being carried across most of the extensive Viceroyalty of Peru, obtaining significant donations thanks to which the Basilica of Our Lady of Mercy was built, consecrated in 1737 as the main headquarters of the Mercedarian Order in Ecuador to this day.