The butcher's shop in Granada that has a life-size Virgin in the shop window

There is a butcher's shop in Granada where, as well as buying meat, you can see a life-size Virgin. When passing through Jesús López's store, the butcher's shop La Tita located in Calle Ancha de Capuchinos, catches many eyes - they are focused on the altar of the sorrowful Virgin in the shop window.

This shop has been open in the San Isidro neighbourhood for six years and, from the very first moment, its owner Jesús has been able to brighten up the street with his shop window: "We always set up an altar according to the festivity that is approaching in Granada, be it Easter, Crosses, Christmas".

Now, in the middle of Holy Week and with the streets of Granada full of people, their gaze is on this neighbourhood butcher's shop, decorated with a Sevillian "dolorosa sevillana": "I fell in love with it four years ago and I wanted to have it in my establishment," the owner pointed out. According to Jesús, it is a Virgin from an antique shop in Seville and it was very difficult to obtain it as the owner did not want to part with it. María Santísima del Consuelo, as she has been called in this butcher's shop, is a carving from the 1950s and has characteristics typical of the Sevillian sculptor Antonio Illanes: "It is an image carved in wood and this sculptor was one of the few who carved like this at that time," Jesús said.

A great deal of time has gone into the making of it. Jesús himself has been in charge of carving her hands. He also said her clothes are his work also.

In a street full of shops, passers-by are astonished as they don't expect a life-size Virgin in the window of a butcher's shop. The owner said many people think it is a work on loan from a brotherhood or a church, but when the workers say it is their own, everyone is shocked: "People who come to shop are delighted to see it so close," Jesús pointed out.

The statue of the Virgin crosses the borders of Granada's neighbourhoods, and normally many residents from other areas such as Zaidín or La Chana come to pray to her. Undoubtedly, the most impressive thing for the owners is the fact that people come and pray in front of it: "Many elderly people come with their walkers and pray the rosary," Jesús pointed out.

This butcher's shop in Granada has won the window decoration prize organised by the Granada city hall for the past two years. Last year, they recreated the image of Jesús del Rescate coming out of the Alhambra and in 2022 they represented the Virgen de los Dolores, a smaller carving but made by Jesús López himself.