San Bernardino of Siena preaching before Alfonso V of Aragon

In 1781 Francisco Goya, still building his reputation at the Spanish court, won a royal commission he badly wanted: one of seven altarpieces for the vast new basilica of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid. He worked on it into 1783, measuring himself against older, better-established painters. The scene shows the medieval friar Bernardino of Siena preaching in the open air, a shaft of light breaking over him, before the seated Alfonso V, king of Aragon. Among the ordinary onlookers at the right edge, one man in yellow stares straight out at us, long thought to be Goya himself, slipping his own face into the crowd. The painting still hangs over its altar in the basilica today.