Madrid School; second half of the seventeenth century. "The Virgin and St. Anthony of Padua". Oil on panel. Presents faults and Repainting. Measurements. 45 x 34 cm; 54 x 43 cm (frame). In an austere cell a great break of glory is developed, arranged in the superior zone of the composition. In the inferior zone, in a completely earthly plane, the figure of a kneeling saint is located, dressed with a gray habit and raising his look and his open hands towards the sky, where the Virgin is. Both the theatricality with which the composition of the scene is conceived, as well as the vaporous digging of tones that tend to luminous finishes, indicate that this is a work typical of the Madrid Baroque school. A school that stands out for its opulence to a great extent enhanced by the court. Saint Anthony of Padua is, after Saint Francis of Assisi, the most popular of the Franciscan saints. He was born in Lisbon in 1195 and only spent the last two years of his life in Padua. After studying at the convent of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, in 1220 he entered the Order of Friars Minor, where he changed his first name, Fernando, to Antonio. After teaching theology in Bologna, he traveled through southern and central France, preaching in Arles, Montpellier, Puy, Limoges and Bourges. In 1227 he participated in the general chapter of Assisi. In 1230 he was in charge of the transfer of the remains of St. Francis. He preached in Padua and died there at the age of 36 in 1231. He was canonized only a year after his death, in 1232. Until the end of the 15th century, the cult of St. Anthony remained located in Padua. From the following century he became, at first, the national saint of the Portuguese, who put under his patronage the churches they built abroad, and then a universal saint. He is represented as a beardless young man with a large monastic tonsure, dressed in the brown habit of the Franciscans. One of his most frequent attributes is the book, which identifies him as a sacred writer. Another distinctive iconographic feature is the branch of lily, an element taken from his panegyrist Bernardino de Siena. St. Anthony is usually presented with the Child Jesus, in allusion to an apparition he had in his cell. It became the most popular attribute of this saint from the 16th century onwards, being especially popular in the Baroque art of the Counter-Reformation.