Saint Joseph with the Christ Child Sleeping in his Arms
1652. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
Until now, this canvas was thought to come from San Felipe el Real in Madrid, as Cruzada Villaamil (1865, no. 544, p. 38) mistakenly registered it. He believed it was one of the canvases mentioned by Palomino at that Augustine convent: "in a chapel beside the door to the cloisters there is a painting by him of Saint Joachim leading Our Lady as a girl by the hand; and another painting coupled with this one, of Saint Joseph with the Christ Child in his arms" (1724, ed. 1988, p. 323). However, Palomino immediately referred to "two other paintings on the same subjects" that were part of the main altarpiece of the Sanctuary of the Virgin of la Fuencisla in Segovia, which are still there, and which show Saint Joaquin walking hand-in-hand with the Virgin and Saint Joseph, standing with the Christ Child." The description of the paintings that painter Juan Gálvez gathered in Toledo, dated July 7, 1836, and the commission inventories signed by him, as well as the general inventory of paintings in storage at the Museo de la Trinidad and chosen by the Academy´s commission, which includes very reliable dimensions for each work, assure this work´s provenience from the convent of El Carmen Descalzo in Toledo. There, it would have been coupled with Saint Anne, Saint Joachim and the Virgin (P5171), which has the same dimensions, is dated the same year, and presents a complementary subject.