Frate Gonzalo de Illescas

On 2 March 1639 Zurbarán signed a contract in Seville for seven more canvases for the sacristy of the monastery at Guadalupe, in the hills of Extremadura. He had delivered the first one the year before. Each shows a father of the Hieronymite order standing for one of the virtues a novice was meant to acquire, and this one, Gonzalo de Illescas, prior of the house and later bishop of Córdoba, is at his desk writing, which stands for the discipline of staying in your cell. Through the window behind him a monk gives alms to the poor. When Spain dissolved the religious orders in 1835 most monastic cycles were broken up and sold. These were overlooked, and they still hang in the room they were painted for.