The Adoration of the Magi

In February 1612 Maíno signed a contract in Toledo to paint the high altarpiece of San Pedro Mártir, the Dominican church in the city. He promised the work in eight months. It ran until December 1614, and part of the reason falls in the middle of those years. On 27 July 1613 he took the Dominican habit himself, in that same convent. He began the job as a hired painter and finished it as a member of the community that had hired him.

Four large canvases carried the four great feasts of the Church, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost. This is the Epiphany. It hung on the right of the altarpiece, answering an Adoration of the Shepherds on the other side, and the Prado dates the group 1612 to 1614 rather than to any single year.

He had spent his twenties in Italy and had not put Italy down. The kings kneel in front of a broken arcade that is the Colosseum, ivy growing out of the stonework, drawn the way travellers to Rome drew it in his lifetime. The eldest king is nearest, holding up a gold chalice, and the Virgin sits with the child at the right edge of the canvas.