Stamp contains symbols

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

In the Nov. 10 Compass [print edition only] we ran a photo of the 2006 religious Christmas stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

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That prompted a letter from readers Dick and Shirley Schultz, who provided more information on the stamp, which is a reproduction of a 1765 oil-on-canvas painting by Ignacio Chacon, "Madonna and Child with Bird."

Mr. Schultz included a clipping from Linn's Stamp News, which says the painting was inspired by "La Sagrada Familia del Pajarito" (Holy Family of the Little Bird) by Bartolome Esteban Murillo, the first Spanish painter to be widely known outside his country.

"The topic of Murillo's painting would have fit in well with Inca culture in Peru because birds were considered a sacred animal," Linn's Stamp News notes. "This belief related to the flight of the birds, which put them closer to the sun god Inti.

"This explains the inclusion of birds and feathers in Peruvian artwork and in the 'Madonna and Child' painting as symbols of divinity," Linn's Stamp News says.

The Chacon painting, which the stamp is based on, is part of the Engracia and Frank Barrows Freyer Collection of Peruvian colonial art at the Denver Art Museum.