The Dream of Saint Joseph (El sueño de San José)

According to a written description by Ricardo del Arco (1915), this painting was located on the right-hand wall of the oratory opposite Visitation (La Visitación), and had already suffered serious damage in its original location due to a crack in the wall.

The subject corresponds with the events narrated in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (1:20). Saint Joseph is shown sitting on a step and leaning on a pedestal, wrapped in a yellow blanket. A young angel speaks to him as he sleeps. Some architectural elements are visible in the middle ground of the room where the scene takes place. In the lower right-hand corner of the foreground we can see the flowering staff and a red cloak, while the Virgin Mary is depicted in a sitting position in the background on the left.

The scene is composed using visibly rigid parallel diagonal lines, repeating with slight variations the model created by the French painter Simon Vouet (1590-1649) for a lost work produced around 1638 in oil on wooden panel. That painting formed part of the decoration of the Chapel d'Hachères in the Church of the Feuillants in rue Saint-Honoré in Paris: Goya had the opportunity to observe it in the form of a print version produced by Michel Dorigny.