Saint Anthony of Padua with the Infant Christ

Tiepolo was the last great master of the painted ceiling, and by 1767 he was an old man far from home. Charles the Third had summoned him to Madrid to decorate the new royal palace, and once those enormous frescoes were finished he stayed on, painting a set of altarpieces for the church of San Pascual at Aranjuez, of which this is one. Saint Anthony kneels over his book as the Christ child appears above it, a spray of lilies at his feet. It is smaller and quieter than the ceilings that made his name. Fashion at the Spanish court was already shifting toward a cooler, plainer style, and within a few years of his death in 1770 these Aranjuez altarpieces were taken down.