Saint Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata

Tiepolo was the most sought-after ceiling painter in Europe, and he was near the end. In 1762 the king of Spain, Charles III, had lured him from Venice to Madrid to decorate the royal palace, and in 1767 came this commission: altarpieces for a new Franciscan church at Aranjuez, the royal town south of the capital. The subject is a miracle from 1224 — Saint Francis, alone on a mountain in prayer, receiving the stigmata, the five wounds of the crucified Christ opening on his own body while a seraph blazes overhead and an angel holds him up. But taste at the Spanish court was already turning against everything Tiepolo stood for. A cooler, harder, more classical style was coming in, and its champion, the painter Mengs, had the king's ear. Tiepolo died in Madrid in March 1770. The Aranjuez altarpieces came down in 1775, replaced by work in the newer taste, and this canvas passed with the royal collection into the Prado.