Saint Joseph with the Child Jesus

Zurbarán painted this for a convent of the barefoot Mercedarians in Seville, an order founded to collect ransom money and buy back Christians held captive in North Africa. Seville was then the port where Spain's American silver came ashore, and its convents could pay for altarpieces on this scale. The canvas is more than two metres tall. Joseph is walking with the child, holding his hand, rather than standing over him. The painting left Spain in the 19th century and was bought in 1889 by Louis-Pierre Jouan, the parish priest of Saint-Médard in Paris, where it hangs today, listed as a historic monument since 1959. Grime and old varnish had turned the background into a brown wall. A recent cleaning brought back the grey-blue sky and the trees standing behind the two figures.