Kerala: Popular Mother Mary painting at Vallarpadam gets new lease of life

KOCHI: The popular painting of Our Lady of Ransom believed to have been shipped in from Portugal some 500 years ago and mounted on the altar of the Vallarpadam Basilica has been restored to its past glory. It took about 10 days for the specialists to remove the years of grime and varnish and place the painting again on the altar. The last restoration work on the painting was done around 18 years ago.
“What necessitated the latest restoration work was the deterioration of the painting due to the effects of long-term natural exposure.When I first examined the work, it was in a bad condition due to the exposure to our tropical climate. The paints had peeled and had turned yellowish,” said Satyajit Ibn, art conservator, who brought the painting back to life along with Sruthi Halghokar.
It is popularly believed that the painting on a wooden panel brought in by Portuguese missionaries originally depicted the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy and infant Jesus but in 1752 the images of Meenakshi Amma, a Nair woman and her son, were added to it
The restoration work was carried out in connection with the 500th anniversary of the installation of the painting on the main altar of the church.
“The original painting did not have the image of Meenakshi Amma and her son. Those images were later added by local artists around 250 years ago. The mother and son were rescued from the water three days after their boat capsized in the backwaters. After the incident, both became staunch devotees of Mother Mary,” said Fr Alphonse Panackal, director of art and heritage commission in Verapoly archdiocese.
However, art historians are sceptical about the claims on the antiquity of the painting.
“It is very difficult to believe the claim that the painting is around 500 years old. There is no historical evidence available to legitimize the claim, particularly in relation to Malabar Coast. Original European paintings were brought to India by the Portuguese through Goa. Between 1750 and 1850, artists from Europe reached here and painted portraits. They took along some of the paintings while going back to Europe and left some here,” said M Ramachandran, former secretary of Kendra Lalit Kala Akademy.