The story
Three of the altar paintings in this convent church in Valladolid are by Francisco Goya, painted in 1787 when he was in his early forties. King Charles III had paid to rebuild the house of the Cistercian nuns of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, and the new Neoclassical church, built to designs by Francesco Sabatini, the Italian-born royal architect, was inaugurated that same year. Goya's canvases hang on side altars alongside works by his brother-in-law, the painter Ramón Bayeu. They show the death of Saint Joseph, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux healing a crippled man, and Saint Lutgarde, a medieval Cistercian mystic, at prayer.
Since 1978 part of the monastery has been open as a museum of religious art. Its sculpture includes a recumbent Christ by Gregorio Fernández, the leading Baroque carver of Valladolid, and a grieving Virgin by Pedro de Mena.
