Saint Francis in Ecstasy

By 1660 Zurbarán was in his early sixties and out of fashion. For decades his stark, sculptural saints had filled the monasteries of Seville, but the softer, sweeter manner of the younger Murillo now drew the commissions, and money was tight. This is one of the last of the many times he painted Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order and his own name saint. Francis kneels in his coarse brown habit, face lifted, hands cradling a human skull, the reminder of death that friars kept before them in prayer. For almost a century after it reached Bavaria the picture hung under the wrong name, credited to the Italian painter Guido Reni until its attribution was corrected in 1818.