Saint Anne, Saint Joachim and the Virgin
1652. Oil on canvas. On display elsewhereWhile it is not listed in any known inventory, this canvas´s provenience from the convent of Los Carmelitas Descalzos in Toledo is certain, as it was coupled there with Saint Joseph with the Christ Child Sleeping in his Arms (P5170), which has the same dimensions, is dated the same year, and presents a complementary subject. The fact that the Virgin appears as a girl dressed in the Carmelite habit seems to further insure its origin. Cruzada Villaamil (1865, no. 547, p. 37) registered this painting as coming from the Carmelite convent of San Hermenegildo in Madrid, as he almost certainly believed it was the depiction of Saint Anne with the Virgin as a girl registered there by Ceán (1800, I, p. 198). However, that convent´s 1783 inventory of paintings, which the Count of Polentinos published in 1933, lists the painting at the Carmelite monastery in Madrid with measurments of only 5 x 4 palms. Barrio Moya (1983) indicated it was from the convent of El Caballero de Gracia, as he mistook it for Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read, 1394.