Concepcionist retiring Convent
Concepcionist retiring Convent
The Convent´s works started with the layouts of the architect, of French origin,
Santiago Raón, following the willing of the Mother María Paula de Jesús Aguirre y Gamarra. She was born in Estella and was her founder. She practiced in the Convent that the Order had in Agreda, in the region of Soria.It was built as a copy of the Agreda´s one and was inaugurated on the 25th of November of 1731, after 50 years of works.
The façade of the church has three different levels. Topped by a frontal, it reproduces the shapes created by the Carmelite architect fray Alberto de la Madre de Dios, in the first half of the 17th century. He was a famous architect because of the construction of the Encarnación Convent in Madrid.
The church has a nave with three sections with a projecting transept and a straight apse.
Its barrel vault cover has lunette domes and a half dome over pendentives in the central section. The interior decoration is made by different altarpieces in a late Barroque style, like the one dedicated to the Virgen del Pilar , carved in 1730 by Lucas de Mena.
The San Miguel altarpiece is more modern, in a Neo-Gothic style, but the image of the archangel in this niche is from the 18th century. The main altarpiece comes from San Pedro de Lizarra´s church. The artists Imberto´s family from Estella worked on it from the second half of the 16th century to the first one of the 17th century.