Legacies of the New Spain paintings to Spanish religious institutions

The presence of a great number of paintings from the New Spain viceroyalty in several Spanish religious institutions brings up some interesting questions. One of the less known information concerns the origin and arrival processes of these paintings. Research reveals that they were donated by Spaniards who had made gold in America and clergymen having mainly devotional reasons. The most abundant iconography is the Virgin of Guadalupe of Mexico. The documented cases allow us to know information about the character and the donation purposes of donor. The conserved registres, the parrochial archives and the inscriptions existing in some of these pictures, contribute to reconstruct a process with a great symbolic value which connected Spain and America during the viceroyal age.