Italian school; XVIII century.

Italian school; XVIII century.
"Saint Simon of Rojas".
Oil on copper.
It presents faults in the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 37 x 28.5 cm; 47 x 41 cm (frame).
In a twilight landscape, a saint comforts some small children. All of them extend the hand towards the religious who is giving a coin to one of them. This gesture, which denotes a certain ordinariness, also awakens the empathy of the spectator and therefore that of the faithful, thus revealing the didactic purpose of this devotional painting. The painting favors this message in a kindly way by presenting anecdotal gestures among the children, such as the little one crawling in the foreground, or the one hiding a rosary behind his back. In one of them we see the scapular with the cross of the Trinitarian order, in the same way that can be seen on the saint's tunic, thus indicating that we are dealing with Saint Simon de Rojas.
Simón de Rojas, a saint from Valladolid who lived between 1551 and 1624, whose devotion in Mexico comes from Spain, and more specifically from Madrid, where the Blessed and Trinitarian lived most of his life. He was a saint who received a very intense cult due to the greatness of his spiritual work, deployed throughout his life. He was confessor to Queen Isabella of Valois, third wife of Philip III, redeemer of captives, great preacher and assistant to the sick.