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.

Montserrat is a mountain range in Catalonia and the site of the Benedictine monastery Santa Maria de Montserrat which houses a wonder-working statue of the Virgin Mary under that title, also known affectionately to devotees by the dimnuitive La Moreneta (The Little Dark One) - a reference to the statue's black colour. According to legend, the statue was carved by St Luke in Jerusalem and brought to Barcelona by St Peter. It was later buried in the mountains to hide it from the conquering Moors and rediscovered by shepherds in the 8th century who were guided to the spot by an angelic chorus. When the bishop tried to remove the statue to enshrine it in his cathedral in Manresa it became supernaturally heavy and wouldn't budge so a shrine was built around it on the spot instead.

The earliest written documentation of the shrine is an 932 endowment by the Count of Barcelona renewing one made by his father in 888. The monastery was founded in the 11th century and extensively rebuilt in the 19th and 20th centuries. The current statue is a 12th-century romanesque sculpture of the type known as 'Throne of Wisdom' or 'Virgin in Majesty' and may have replaced an earlier image. One of the most famous devotees of Our Lady of Montserrat was the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), who marked the beginning of his religious vocation with a pilgrimage to the shrine in March 1522 and presented his sword and dagger to the Virgin (he had previously been a soldier). Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) declared Our Lady of Montserra patron of Catalonia and raised the monastery church to the status of a basilica in 1881.