Viceroyalty of New Granada (Colombia and Venezuela). 17th - 18th century. Painting of Souls in Purgatory with Saint Dominic of Guzmán and Saint Francis of Assisi, under the gaze of the Holy Trinity'. Oil on canvas. Relined. 133 x 92 cm. Lovely painting of the Blessed Souls in Purgatory, an almost obligatory theme in the 17th - 18th centuries, and throughout the three centuries of Spanish domination, in addition to those referring to the life of the Virgin Mary and the life of Christ, and that of the Saints. From the 17th century onwards, this theme began to take shape in the face of Martin Luther's attacks, who denied the existence of purgatory, and to which the Catholic Church responded at the Council of Trent, declaring purgatory to be dogma. It was the Jesuits who first displayed such a picture in their church in Rome, and it was they who took this image to all the places where they were present with their evangelisation. They arrived in New Spain well into the 16th century, which is why paintings of souls in purgatory did not begin to appear until the following century. With the delicacy and finesse of Neo-Granadine painters, the scene depicts the souls in purgatory between Saint Dominic of Guzmán and Saint Francis of Assisi, patrons of the Dominicans and Franciscans, two other mendicant orders who also went there to baptise and evangelise, and who pray and intercede for them, looking up to heaven, looking at the Holy Trinity itself, which will ultimately receive them into its merciful and heavenly bosom. It is a pedagogical and catechetical painting, whose purpose was to remind Catholics of their obligation to pray for the souls of the deceased, who had to pass through purgatory. The painting has two clearly differentiated planes, above the Triumphant Church, with the Trinity receiving and welcoming, and below the Purging Church, which shows the souls of the dead burning in the purifying fire. Topped by a figurative trompe l'oeil frame that encloses the picture of devotion to which one must pray, that is the message that lies behind many of these paintings in the churches of Latin America, 'you have one soul and no more, if you lose it what will you do', which is a message also for the passer-by, parishioner or neighbour who contemplates it, a continuous 'memento'.