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This elegant 1850s image of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus with unusually well–articulated ivory faces and hands is a faithful representation of “Nuestra Senora del Rosario” or Our Lady of the Rosary, venerated in many churches in Spain and in the Philippines. The principal image and national shrine of “Nuestra Senora del Rosario” or Our Lady of the Rosary in the Philippines is the majestic “Nuestra Senora del Santisimo Rosario”/“Santo Rosario”/“La Naval de Manila” at the Santo Domingo church in Quezon city. The iconography of the original Spanish Catholic Marian title “Nuestra Senora del Rosario” includes a rosary and a scepter held by the right hand and the Child Jesus holding a rosary and a globe supported on the mother’s left hand; they symbolize the Virgin Mary’s and the Child Jesus’ queenship and kingship of heaven and earth as well as their individual desires for human salvation through prayers with the holy rosary. The Virgin Mary wears a long wig of “jusi” fibers, a silvergilt “corona,” a metal “rostrillo” around her face, and a metal “aureola” around her head; the Child Jesus wears a longish wig of “jusi” fibers and a silvergilt “corona.” The previous owner had them dressed expensively with “tunicas” and “capas” of metal thread embroidery by “Talleres de Maximo Vicente” in the 1970s. The Virgin Mary stands on an elegant base of Chinese clouds (as in those of Guanyin blanc–de–chine statuettes from the Dehua kilns) covered in silver leaf borne by a “peana” (pedestal) of gilded stylized flowers and leaves characteristic of the 1850s. Based on the high quality of the ivory, the exquisite carving of the faces and hands, and the period woodwork, this was the production of a master “santero” from Binondo, Manila. These tabletop (“de vestir”/dressed) “santos” with ivory faces and hands in glass “virinas” (cloches) were the preferred religious icons of the Filipino upper–class waxed rich from agriculture and trading during the Spanish colonial era (1565–1898) and a half century afterwards (up to the 1950s). They may look Victorian and nineteenth century, but there are excellent and well–conserved early examples from as early as the 1570s as documented by the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla and the Museo Oriental de Real Colegio de Los Padres Agustinos in Valladolid, Spain. It means that they were produced at the same time frame as the successive renaissance, baroque, rococo, and neoclassical statues of the old Augustinian, Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit, and Augustinian Recollect churches in the islands as well as the charming naïve folk santos in indio “bahay kubo”/quonset huts. The once–accepted theory that they were only produced onwards from the late eighteenth century (circa 1770s) was finally proven erroneous. On the other hand, the fact that they were produced by migrant “Sangley” Chinese artisans and their indio assistants still holds true after four hundred years. Old Filipinas harbored droll tales of aristocratic dons and donas in prosperous, agricultural Pampanga, Bulacan, Laguna and Batangas who could only pray in front of European–looking, fair, beautiful, and handsome ivory santos in their home altars (with the exception of the extremely miraculous Mexican–origin “Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno” of Quiapo and the “Nuestra Senora de la Paz y Buenviaje” of Antipolo; however, it has to be emphasized that the two images actually wore “encarna” or painted faces which made them look more fair during the 1800s and the previous centuries; for example, Jose Rizal and his “ilustrado” contemporaries never saw the Nazareno and the Virgen de la Paz in their current 2024 natural/barefaced states; they would be unrecognizable to them). These exquisite ivory santos were only superseded in favor of folk and classical imagery in Philippine hardwoods starting in the hip 1960s culminating in a total pivot of collective taste in the 2000s. The devotion to “Nuestra Senora del Rosario” was one of the most popular in Old Filipinas. According to Roman Catholic tradition, the Holy Rosary was given to Saint Dominic de Guzman (founder of the OP Ordo Praedicatorum/Order of Preachers/Dominican order) by the Virgin Mary in an apparition in 1208 at the Church of Prouille, Fanjeaux, Languedoc in France (currently Occitanie in central southern France, between the Rhone and Garonne rivers). The devotion in Old Filipinas centered around the Dominicans in Intramuros who promoted the devotion along with their stewardship of a majestic ivory image of the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus from 1593 wearing magnificent crowns of solid gold and precious gems, clad in elaborate golden vestments, and wearing gold rosaries on their necks --- “Nuestra Senora del Santisimo Rosario”/“Santo Rosario”/“La Naval de Manila.” The annual “fiesta”/feast day of “La Naval de Manila” every second Sunday of October at the Santo Domingo church in Intramuros was truly a gala affair in Old Manila and Old Filipinas. Unlike its predecessor “La Naval de Lepanto” which was a fierce one–day naval battle on 07 October 1571 off the coast of Patras, Greece between the Holy League (Catholic European powers united by Pope Pius V) and the Ottoman Turks, “La Naval de Manila” commemorated a series of sea battles in 1646 along the coasts of Luzon island between the Spanish against the invading Dutch armada (wherein the Spanish only had two old galleons “Rosario” and “Encarnacion” against the Dutch who had fifteen frigates, and yet the Spanish still prevailed against all odds). In both cases, the Catholic navies had less ships and less soldiers than their opponents. The victories of “La Naval de Lepanto” and “La Naval de Manila” were both officially attributed to the Virgin Mary as “Our Lady of Victory” and “Our Lady of the Rosary.” The highest Spanish colonial officialdom, the highest–ranking clerics, the crème de la crème of Spanish colonial society all congregated in their finery at the Santo Domingo church for the high masses and the grand procession around “Ciudad Murada” in the early evening. “La Naval de Manila” was one of the proudest annual rites of Spanish Intramuros and it remains so to this day in its postwar location in Quezon city. The devotion to the “Santo Rosario” or the “Holy Rosary” was widespread in the archipelago. Many baby girls in Old Filipinas were baptized Rosario, Maria Rosario, Maria del Rosario in honor of the Virgin Mary. (Augusto Marcelino Reyes Gonzalez III)