This carved ivory statuette depicts Our Lady of the Conception, her long hair parted in the middle and with her hands joined together in prayer, standing on top of a swirling cluster of clouds with the crescent moon (decorated with an applied winged cherub), is almost forty-five centimetres in height. The carving is of an unusually fine quality, rendering with superb craftsmanship the contemplative face of the Virgin and the folds of her clothes. The carved surface presents a highly polished finish, highlighting the warm quality and subtle tones of the material. This large sculpture must have been produced by Filipino and Chinese master carvers in the Philippines - to where many of them emigrated from south China in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries - for a Spanish or Portuguese clientele, not unlike the previous pieces . The presence of Chinese craftsman and Chinese mestizos (of mixed race) in the Philippines during the colonial period resulted in the production of religious and devotional images with marked Chinese characteristics, here visible mostly in the rendering of the face. Francisco Hipólito Raposo, one of the most well informed connoisseurs of such ivory carvings, summarises the main characteristics of this production: “The faces of the statuettes are generally very expressive, denoting spirituality and mysticism [...] the physiognomy and expression are clearly Chinese, the mouth is slightly open and the eyes are oblong and almond-shaped; the decorative aspects reveal attention to detail characteristic of Chinese art [...] every piece denotes a meticulous realism that immediately identifies it with the modus faciendi peculiar to Chinese art.” In seventeenth-century Philippines, images such as the present one were known as La Purísima Concepción, a cult which became so important in the islands that the cathedral of Manila, the first in the Philippines in 1578 was erected under the invocation of the Immaculate Conception, as were the cathedrals of Nueva Segovia in Lallo, Cagayan and Nueva Cáceres in Naga, Camarines Sur, dedicated in 1595. While many later examples are know, earlier examples of superior craftsmanship and scale such as this Purísima are very rare.