Calasanctian Museum of the Piarist Fathers

In May 1819 the Piarist Fathers of the school of San Antón in Madrid asked Francisco de Goya, then 73, to paint the death of their founder. Saint Joseph Calasanz, a priest from Aragon, had opened free schools for poor children in Rome around 1600, and his order, the Escuelas Pías, went on to run schools across Spain. Goya may himself have been taught by the Piarists as a boy in Zaragoza. Of the fee he received, he kept only a small part and gave the rest back as an offering to the saint, and he followed it with a second gift, a small panel of Christ on the Mount of Olives.

Both paintings now belong to the order's museum in the Residencia Calasanz, in Madrid's Chamberí district. The large canvas, The Last Communion of Saint Joseph Calasanz, hangs in the chapel and shows the old priest receiving communion among his pupils. The panel of Christ praying in the garden is in the picture room, where works by Ribera and El Greco hang beside church silverwork and a 16th-century Book of Hours. Entry is free, by telephone appointment.