The amazing miracle or legend of the "Lactatio (Lactation) of Saint Bernard" has been widely depicted in Christian iconography, both in painting and sculpture: The Virgin Mary rewards Saint Bernard's great Marian devotion in an ambiguously chaste way: by expressing the milk from one breast to offer it in a stream to the saint, in the presence of the Child whom she holds in her free arm.
Bernard (Fontaines-les-Dijon 1090 - Clairvaux 1153), a nobleman from Burgundy (France), was a Benedictine monk and co-founder of the Cistercian order (reform - a return to the origins of the Order of Saint Benedict), founder of the Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux, preacher of the Second Crusade and guarantor of the Templars. A Doctor of the Church, with an exuberant verb and an overwhelming personality, he was one of the most influential men of his time.
This 18th-century polychrome wood relief, "Saint Bernard", is kept in the abbey of Cistercian nuns in Cañas, La Rioja, where there are up to four works on the same subject: two by the painter Clemente Sánchez (17th century) and two polychrome wood panels from the 16th and 18th centuries.
Related topics: Adult lactation: Lactatio Saint Bernard, Saint Fulbert, Alain de la Roche. Lactation of Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. Roman charity. Filial piety of Confucianism.