This sculpture depicts Saint Francis of Assisi standing and dressed in the Franciscan habit, meditating on a crucifix which he is holding with both hands in a delicate gesture. It is a work by Pedro de Mena y Medrano, carved in Malaga in 1677 where this Granada-born artist established a studio in 1658. A notably interesting feature of this sculpture is that it retains its ivory plaque with the artist’s name, the place of the work’s creation and the date, of a type that Mena customarily applied to his small-format works of the 1670s. Other examples of such plaques are to be found on The Infant Saint John the Baptist (Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla), and Saint Joseph and the Christ Child (church of San Nicolás in Murcia), both of 1674; Saint Clare of Assisi of 1675 (convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid), and The Immaculate Conception of 1676 (church of San Nicolás in Murcia), which formed a pair with the above-mentioned Saint Joseph. The signature on this Saint Francis of Assisi also has the sculptor’s second surname (Medrano), as does The Immaculate Conception in Murcia executed the previous year, in contrast to the other two works which only have his first surname.

This group of works can now be expanded with the present Saint Francis of Assisi, dated the same year as The Immaculate Conception, thus increasing our knowledge of the artist’s activities and his style before he became ill in the outbreak of the plague in 1679. These works were produced during a period of commissions for important clients, notably the Duke of Arcos, the Bishop of Córdoba and particularly Juan José de Austria and Fray Alonso de Santo Tomás, two of Philip IV’s illegitimatesons, although only the former was acknowledged as a member of the royal family.