This canvas, dating from the first third of the 18^th century, as suggested by its magnificent rococo frame, must have been the work of an artist from La Rioja or Navarra, and can be associated to an anonymous print devoted to Captain-General Iñigo de la Cruz Manrique de Lara Ramírez de Arellano (1673-1733), on which the robes of the Virgin are based, the position of the tree, the apparition of the angel to the repenting thief on the right, the coffer in the foreground, and the eagle of the throne, among others. Our Lady of Valvanera, patroness of La Rioja, rests seated on a throne before a tree trunk, lavishly dressed, with the Child on her knees and a fruit in her left hand. At her feet is an open coffer full of strings of pearls and precious stones. A stream flows from the tree trunk, while in the right, afar in the background scenery, we can discern an angel appearing to a hermit.

The legend tells that a repenting thief who had become a hermit found an image of the Virgin and Child tucked into the trunk of a large oak tree next to a beehive and a spring, and that he built a shrine in that place that would eventually turn into a monastery.

The traditional iconography of this Virgin—which dates from the 13^th century, when the legend was first narrated (1282)—presents her seated on a throne, inside an oak tree with a beehive, which symbolises resurrection and, because of the industriousness of bees, the virtue of work and order. She is wearing a richly decorated tunic and mantle, crowned, and with a veil of silver and gems that covers all of her hair. With her right hand she holds the crowned Child—who has turned to the side and holds an open book with his left hand while making a blessing gesture with the right—in the book, we can read the words: “BOLBIO / EL ROSTRO / POR / NO VER / UN SA / CRI / LEGIO” (He turned his head so he would not see sacrilege). In her left hand she shows a fruit that has changed with the passage of time: an apple crowned with grapes and three wheat stalks, the symbol of the New Alliance, of the New Eve, redemptive in her intercession. To the right of the Virgin an eagle’s head peeks out—part of the throne of Our Lady, along with another three heads that remain concealed under her ample robes—which becomes yet another of her attributes. The open coffer may be an allusion to the offering of the thief to the Virgin, as he appears with the angel, to the right, in most of the Virgin’s pictorial representations.