St. Francis Borgia Helping a Dying Impenitent

In 1788 Goya was still the polished court painter, a year from being named First Court Painter, when the Duke and Duchess of Osuna handed him a family commission: two scenes for a chapel in Valencia Cathedral honouring their ancestor, the Jesuit Francis Borgia. One scene is calm. This one is not. Borgia holds up a crucifix over a dying man who refuses to repent, and around the bed crouch small grey monsters waiting for the soul. Nothing in Spanish painting had shown demons quite like these. They arrive here about 35 years before the nightmares Goya would paint on the walls of his own house, and well before the deafness of 1793 that people like to credit for them. Blood springs from the small crucifix toward the dying man, the one bright note in the gloom.