Spanish school; ca. 1600. "Holy Family with Saint Juanito". Oil on canvas. Re-coloured. It presents repainting. Measurements: 97 x 80 cm; 117 x 99 cm (frame). Scene of devotional character in which we can appreciate the presence of Saint Joseph sleeping placed in the left zone of the composition, the Virgin and the Child in the centre, Saint Juanito in the right part, besides a small angel that completes the scene. It should be noted that the Child is depicted in the foreground, next to the Virgin Mary, while the rest of the figures are in the background. They are all set in a dark-toned interior, illuminated by the flesh tones of the figures. The scene is intimate in character, as despite the hieratic nature of the figures, the Virgin and Child share an attitude of playfulness and complicity between them. In the most common sense of the expression, the Holy Family includes the closest relatives of the Child Jesus, i.e. mother and grandmother or mother and nurturing father. In both cases, whether it is Saint Anne or Saint Joseph who appears, it is a group of three figures. From an artistic point of view, the arrangement of this terrestrial Trinity poses the same problems and suggests the same solutions as the heavenly Trinity. However, the difficulties are fewer. It is no longer a question of a single God in three persons, whose essential unity must be expressed at the same time as his diversity. The three personages are united by a blood link, certainly, but they do not constitute an indivisible block. Moreover, all three are represented in human form, while the dove of the Holy Spirit introduces a zoomorphic element into the divine Trinity that is difficult to combine with two anthropomorphic figures. On the other hand, this iconography was traditionally, until the Counter-Reformation, a representation of the Virgin and Child with the figure of Saint Joseph in the foreground. It was not until the reforms of Trent that Saint Joseph began to take centre stage as the protector and guide of the Infant Jesus. Spanish Baroque painting is one of the most authentic and personal examples of our art, because its conception and form of expression arose from the people and their deepest feelings. With the economy of the state in ruins, the nobility in decline and the clergy heavily taxed, it was the monasteries, parishes and confraternities of clerics and laymen who encouraged its development, with the works sometimes being financed by popular subscription. Painting was thus obliged to express the prevailing ideals in these environments, which were none other than religious ones, at a time when Counter-Reformation doctrine demanded a realistic language from art so that the faithful could understand and identify with what was depicted, and an expression endowed with an intense emotional content to increase the fervour and devotion of the people. Religious themes were therefore the main subject matter of Spanish painting of this period, which in the early decades of the century focused on capturing the natural world and gradually intensified throughout the century on expressive values, which it achieved through movement and a variety of gestures, the use of light and the depiction of moods and feelings. Dimensions 97 x 80 cm; 117 x 99 cm (frame).