The making of a work of art as a pious act--to record and celebrate a miraculous event--is fundamental to nearly all cultures. In Latin America ex-votos, or paintings made as offerings of thanks for divine intervention, have been tremendously popular, particularly in Mexico, where retablo, the Spanish word for altarpiece, came to be applied solely to these works. Thousands of such paintings survive (and continue to be made), showing, often in very literal detail, the intervention of saints, and above all the Virgin Mary, in the disasters of daily life. Their naïve and direct ability to convey a narrative has held great attraction for many modern artists and collectors, in this case Walter and Louise Arensberg, better known for their Picassos, Duchamps, and Brancusis. The miracle that this retablo records would be clear even without the carefully inscribed caption, which tells how, on February 22, 1803, Barbara Ricco fell and dropped the young child in her arms several feet to the stone floor below. But through the intercession of the Virgin, the child landed completely unharmed. Joseph J. Rishel, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 350.