The work we have before us here is of particular historic artistic interest due to both the technical quality of its fattura and the prominence enjoyed by this specific iconography of Christ, the most widespread in the Philippines20 during the centuries of Spanish rule.

The iconography in question is the Santo Niño de Cebú (Christ Child of Cebu), a title of Filipino origin corresponding to the Infant Jesus iconography of the Salvator Mundi, also known as the Infant Jesus of Prague or the Christ Child of the Orb. Although in the work we are studying here the defining attribute (the globus cruciger, or orb), has not survived, the position of the Child’s left hand, reaching out and with the palm upwards, indicates that it originally held it. The act of benediction presented by the right hand, which is typical of this type of depiction of God as world savior, supports this theory.

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