MARY AS QUEEN OF HEAVEN 7862. THE VIRGIN MARY. French or Italian, 18th-19th century. Old Master oil. The Virgin Mary depicted as a beautiful young lady with long curls of auburn hair trailing down across her shoulders and falling over her back. She is dressed in a fine blue outer robe over a thick white silk blouse with gold collar, a thinner pink undergarment within. She holds Easter lilies, symbols of the annunciation and looks up towards Heaven above. A large gold crescent moon below her and crowned with nine stars around her head which is bathed in the radiant glow of her halo. Oil on canvas. Dimensions 24 x 28 inches in a 38 x 43 inch wonderful original period frame of ornate openwork gilded gesso on wood. Both painting and frame in excellent condition. A museum quality masterpiece. No signature visible but possibly signed under the frame. Provenance: An extensive North Eastern collection, acquired at an upscale estate sale in the 1980's. The Queen of Heaven is a title given to the Virgin Mary by Christians mainly of the Roman Catholic Church, and to some extent in Eastern Orthodoxy, to whom the title is a consequence of the First Council of Ephesus in the fifth century, in which the Virgin Mary was proclaimed "theotokos", a title rendered in Latin as Mater Dei, in English "Mother of God". The title Queen of Heaven has long been a Catholic tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature, and seen in Western art in the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin, from the High Middle Ages, long before it was given a formal definition status by the Church. Mary as Queen of Heaven has been depicted in famous paintings by Fra Angelico, Raphael, Botticelli, Rubens and others. Price on request.