In art historical terms, a black Madonna is a painting or sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary with dark or black skin, created in Europe in the late medieval period, or sometimes an older image whose documented popular cult dates from that time. Some are made of dark or black materials such as ebony, others are said to have become blackened from the soot of candles, although this explanation and the significance of the Madonna’s skin colour is contested. There are several hundred black Madonnas in Europe. The topic of black Madonnas has attracted a considerable literature in recent decades approaching the subject from the perspectives of anthropology, psychology, art history, feminism, and Black history.

The Black Madonna of Sansevero, Maria Santissima del Soccorso (Most Holy Mary of Succour), was brought to Sansevero from Sicily by the Augustinian Canons in 1564. When their monastery was dissolved in 1652, care of the Madonna and her sanctuary passed to a lay confratenity which has maintained them ever since. A two-day festival in her honour, with processions and fireworks, is kept every third Sunday in May and the following Monday. Unusually for a black Madonna, she holds a white Christ Child on her arm. Although the Christ Child was replaced during a 1760 restoration, the original may also have been white. The precedent for this may have been the cult of Our Lady of Regla (or Regola) venerated at Chipiona in Spain, also in the custodianship of Augustinian Canons and reputedly carved or commisioned by St Agustine himself. This holy card was published inthe early 20th century for sale to pilgrims as a souvenir of the Madonna.