The cult and popular devotion to the Divine Infant in past centuries was both a historical and sociological fact. His images in different environments, with as many techniques transcended the strictly religious to be framed in a broader dimension: the cultural. The oratories and even halls of the houses with possibilities had one of his images and the confraternities of the Sweet Name spread his cult in Dominican and Jesuit convents, while some towns like Ablitas and Añorbe had very special festivals and others even with an altarpiece of his dedication, as Huarte Pamplona.

It was in the 16th century, the century of Humanism, after the Age average in which themes such as fear, exaltation or the good death were insisted on, when from different approaches, the cold Erasmus, the enthusiastic Luther or the mystic Teresa of Jesus, coincide in the point of arrival: the Christological experience. The celebration of the feast of the Sweet Name was secularly celebrated in the octave of Christmas, when it was imposed as name Jesus. Until then, at the Annunciation he was the Son of God and at his birth Christ.

Throughout the 17th century, their images multiplied to be contemplated and venerated, meditating on the humanity of Christ, presenting him, in a high percentage of cases, totally naked and as an exempt figure. Throughout the post-Tridentine period, numerous causes can be pointed out in the success of that iconography: the Catholic fervor, attracted by the most familiar and close themes, as well as the case of many saints canonized at that time, who stood out for their particular devotion to the Divine Infant. In general, he usually blesses with his right hand, while with his left hand he holds the orb or terrestrial sphere that speaks of the infinite power that reaches everything.

That new reality around the themes of the infancy of Christ could not escape the Navarrese enclosures. The quantity of sculptures of the Child Jesus that are conserved in the different monasteries and convents is still surprising, although its issue pales in comparison to the references on its images that the documentation provides us. All the great saints and reformers will count him among their favorite subjects, especially St. Teresa. But it was in the Baroque period when the topic acquired great significance, as can be seen in the creation of iconographic types in the different schools of Spanish plastic arts.

Among the religious orders, the Discalced Carmelites stood out. Within their ranks and by Teresian inspiration, there are countless images of the Child Jesus, in its different variants, as well as outstanding religious who stood out in the diffusion of their cult and devotion, such as Father Francisco del Niño Jesús, Brother Juan de Jesús San Joaquín or Mother Ana de San Agustín, whose biographies, accompanied by their portraits were published in plenary session of the Executive Council XVII century. Of these religious mentioned, we have to highlight for his transcendence in Navarra, the figure of Brother Juan de Jesús San Joaquín (1590-1669), a native of Añorbe, where a feast is still celebrated today in honor of an image of the Child Jesus of 1631, studied by I. Urricelqui, with evocations of the aforementioned brother.

One of the reasons why the female cloisters were populated with paintings and especially sculptures of topic, lies in the parallelism established by some authors, especially Jean Blanlo (1617-1657) in his book L'infance chrètienne, between the virtues of Christ's infancy and the charisms and forms of the contemplative life.

The Discalced Carmelite nuns of Pamplona and Corella, the Capuchin nuns of Tudela and the Augustinian Recollect nuns and of San Pedro of the capital of Navarre kept excellent examples both in wood and tin, the latter of Andalusian origin and copying the famous model of Martínez Montañés. Some of them conserve rich bases and cushions.

The images had their trousseau of dresses and mantles of liturgical colors and, sometimes, of the religious orders themselves, not lacking crowns and powers of silver and gilded silver, as well as other jewelry for their adornment. Among the most curious, the Pilgrim Child of the Poor Clares of Olite, from the second quarter of the 17th century, dressed as a pilgrim to Santiago with his wide-brimmed hat, staff, gourd, canteen, shells, sash, amulets and gourd, stands out. It comes from the monastery of Santa Engracia de Pamplona, today Clarisas de Olite and is a sign of inculturation within the Jacobean traditions. The rich dress embroidered with colored threads is of purple silk that speaks of penitence. It is possible that the image belonged to Sister María Daoiz, who died in 1681, at sixty-six years of age and forty-six years of religious life. In her obituary, besides mentioning her virtues and the exercise of her offices, among them that of abbess, it is affirmed that she occupied many hours in prayer and particularly "in very tender devotions that she had to the Child Jesus".

On many occasions, the sculptures do not attract attention for their artistic quality and artistic value, but for their use and function, as well as the data of their location in the different rooms. Some, with courtly and even Spanish-American and Philippine origins, have been able to establish their chronology together with their donors and the curious and particular circumstances of their arrival at the convent. The cult of which they were the object until a few decades ago, speaks of customs that once were also celebrated in homes. In the Carmelites of Araceli de Corella, for example, there are polychrome wood, wax and ivory sculptures. All these sculptures have their appellative that obeys to their location (Noviciado, Locutorio, Cocinero, Refitolero ...) or their origin (Francesito), to their appearance (Rubito) or to the donor (Duque).

One version of the topic of the Child Jesus is the one that presents him triumphant over sin. The most outstanding example is a magnificent and delicate eighteenth-century sculpture, which can be attributed to Juan Antonio Salvador Carmona, around 1760 and which comes from the Capuchinas de Tudela, although it had been attributed to Risueño. He is presented as the Resurrected One, carrying the cross of victory and wearing a white tunic and red mantle. He appears kneeling on the orb and steps on a serpent, an animal that since God's curse to man after the original sin (Genesis, 3, 14) has had a negative connotation of sin.

Another version of the infantile iconography of Christ is the Manolito or little Enmanuel, from the second half of the XVIII century. On Epiphany, in the Hispanic tradition, the Child Jesus or Manolito receives the great ones of this world as a king on his throne. He appears seated, in Majesty, with the orb topped in cross and in the supreme act of blessing. As in other images, he is crowned with the three silver rays. Mysticism is based on the idea of the three powers of the soul: report, understanding and will. This idea, already found in Plato, passed to Christianity, relating it to the three persons of the Trinity. St. Bonaventure, in the pathway of the mind towards God, considers the report as School and image of the Father, the understanding of the Son and the will of the Holy Spirit.

A special chapter is made up of the so-called "pasionarios", accompanied by the "arma Christi" and with faces with tears and crowned with thorns. Sometimes, they accompanied images of the Soledad. The Carmelites of St. Joseph of Pamplona, the Augustinian Recollect Sisters and the Capuchin Sisters of Tudela have several examples, both from the 17th and 18th centuries. About the passionaries, the text of the Mercedarian Interián de Ayala, in his work written in the second quarter of the XVIII century and published in Madrid in language vernacular in 1782, is of obligatory quotation . In his text he states: "We see Christ painted very often, as a Child, and even as a boy, now grown up, amusing himself in childish games: for example, when he is painted playing with a little paxarillo, having him tied with a thread, and carrying him in his hands; or when he is painted riding on horseback on a lamb, or in other similar ways. All this, and other things of this kind, are mere follies and trifles, as a grave Author, and of eminent dignity, has already warned us. This was not what Christ our Lord was occupied with, even in his childish age: much greater and more serious things were stirring in his most holy mind, with whose report, not having subdued his passions with his sovereign rule, he might have been grieved and saddened..... Therefore, it is not reasonable to imagine him occupying himself in childish and childish games, but in very serious thoughts and meditations".

Sometimes, the Passionary Child sleeps on the cross and leaning on a skull, recalling the aphorism nascendo morimur. This is a common Baroque internship , which associates beginning and end and becomes a premonition of the Passion, through the brutal contrast between the skull and the gesture of placidity of the sleeping Child. This iconography, totally alien to the Gospel story, has its roots in the classical representations of Eros and Thanatos, taken up again at the beginning of the Renaissance and reworked from a Christian point of view. The representation is consistent with a passage from the life of St. John of the Cross in the convent of St. Joseph of the Discalced Carmelites of Granada: "around Christmas 1585, when Friar John entered the cloister, the nuns showed him a very beautiful Baby Jesus: he was lying down and asleep on a skull. Fray Juan moved before the sweet expression of the divine Child, exclaims: Lord, if loves have to kill me, now they have place". These images of the Infant Jesus of passion with the skull and the cross, as the aforementioned Interián recalls, "do not so much belong to history as they are the object of pious meditations".

In some occasions, those images left the cloister to go to the demand, as it happened with some that were venerated in the Capuchinas of Tudela, conserved in their urns. An accompanying engraving plate, in the form of a certificate to be distributed among donors, bears the following engraving registration:

"My dearest wives
from Tudela sent me
and they trust in your mercy.
O tender and merciful loves!
They say all of them
that they have fallen into fatal oblivion
and as I take care of them
as a lover in love
to you that I have given so much
I ask you for alms".

In spite of the fact that the plate is headed by a small Heart of Jesus with all the elements of its symbolism and in spite of the fact that the convent of Tudela was the standard bearer in the new deific devotion, the text of the registration seems to be destined to the benefactors of the Capuchinas of Tudela. Specifically, it seems to be destined to be distributed by the brothers and donated of the house in their "paths" along Castilla, Vascongadas, Aragón and Valencia, where they went to collect fruits and alms for the nuns, always accompanied by the famous Niños Jesús in their little chapels, as alms-givers in continuous trip.