Cura milagrosa do beato Reginaldo de Orleans

The order that commissioned this picture was just over 400 years old when Zurbaran painted it, and the scene shows one of its founding moments. In 1218 Reginald of Orleans, a Paris professor of canon law who had recently joined Dominic's new order of preachers, fell dangerously ill in Rome. He recovered, and told the brothers that the Virgin had come to him, anointed him, and shown him a white scapular. The Dominicans took that garment as their own, and friars have worn the white scapular over the habit ever since. Zurbaran gives the Virgin two companions here, and the one holding the jar of ointment is Mary Magdalene. Reginald was sent on to Bologna within months as Dominic's deputy, then to Paris, where he died in 1220.