Basilio Santa Cruz Pumacallao (Cuzco, Peru, 1635 - 1710) 'Death of Saint Joseph' Oil on canvas. Relined. 156 x 104 cm.   The painting's very high pictorial quality is clear to see in spite of the fact that it needs to be cleaned. This indisputable quality can be appreciated in the faces of the three characters, finely executed with sweetness and great expressiveness.  The Virgin Mary's tears are especially worth a mention, as are St. Joseph's left hand, resting inert on his chest and Jesus' right hand, tenderly closing St. Joseph's eyes as he begins his eternal rest.  Great quality can also be seen in the little angels, one carrying a palm and the other a bunch of fruit, painted with very loose and sure brushstrokes, with very marked and characteristic golden curls. We also highlight the endearing gesture of Jesus with his father who, while closing his eyes as we said, takes his right hand with great affection to join it with his left hand on his chest.  This religious scene has, however, a domestic essence and a totally costumbrist plasticity, probably with an evangelizing purpose, since its theme is the Holy Family and the death of St. Joseph, but it is still a family that is dealing with the loss of the father at home, an everyday scene chosen in order to encourage faith through people's empathy with the events in the painting. They suffer as we do, a more human way to conquer faith amongst believers, and a formula that clearly characterizes Pumacallao's era. On the one hand, therefore, we have the death of St. Joseph and all that it implies theologically and, on the other, the daily scene, with a wonderful still life, which we will detail later, and the pet animal that tries, slyly, to snatch the piece of sponge cake by the table leg. The still life we mentioned could be a small painting within our painting. It depicts a carved wooden table with legs in the shape of an animal's claw, on which a series of elements of household furnishings rest next to a tropical fruit, all clearly typical of this painter's region, such as a polychromed plate, an earthenware vase and a half-filled glass vase containing an amber liquid. Due to the composition and subject matter, with its clearly horizontal presentation, we can see that a fragment of the canvas is missing on both sides. Basilio de Santa Cruz Pumacallao, along with Diego Quispe Tito, dominated the artistic panorama of the Cuzco school during the last quarter of the 17th century. His most relevant patron was Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo (1673-1699), a Spanish cleric who arrived in Cuzco in 1673. Together with José López de los Ríos and Leonardo Torres, he created the iconographies of the Angels and the Arcabuceros Archangels, which are very characteristic of the Cuzco school. As indicated by the Royal Academy of History, Pumacallao's career 'began around 1661, when the Franciscans of Cuzco commissioned him to paint twelve angels and an equal number of Madonnas for their church, paintings that are now lost.' In his work one can perceive strong influences of Spanish painting, as he manages to exquisitely fuse Spanish baroque with his indigenous origins, resulting in an innovative and unique mestizo style.     Bibliographic reference: - Wuffarden, Luis Eduardo. (s.f.). 'Basilio de Santa Cruz Pumacallao'. Real Academia de la Historia: DB-e. https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/54763/basilio-de-santa-cruz-pumacallao