Juan Antonio de Frias y Escalante Cordoba 1630 - 1669 Madrid

This small devotional image is entirely characteristic of the work of Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante, who according to Palomino moved from his native Córdoba at an early age to study with Francisco Rizi in Madrid. The colouring and distinctive lighting of the painting establishes the artist firmly within the tradition of baroque painters working in Madrid during the mid-17th century, notably Juan Carreño de Miranda, Claudio Coello and José Antolínez, whose paletes in turn reflected the work of the great Venetian colourists. Escalante's oeuvre is relatively small on account of the artist's premature death from tuberculosis in 1669.