Saint Aloysius Gonzaga Meditating in his Study (San Luis Gonzaga meditando en su estudio)

The image is painted on a ground containing earth pigments from Seville, which is visible in some areas as it shows through the glazes applied. The artist also used opaque layers of paint to create luminous effects with a very austere palette.

The Jesuit saint and Italian noble, who renounced the Marquesate of Castilione when he entered the Company of Jesus, is depicted in his study, He was a page of honour in the court of Philip II between 1581 and 1584. In this painting, he is standing next to a table with his symbolic objects on it: the Madonna lilies of chastity, the crown symbolizing the title he renounced, a skull and a cilice, representing asceticism, and the crucifix he holds in his hand with a white cloth signifying purity on which his gaze is fixed. These objects are depicted with thicker brushstrokes, bringing them into the foreground. The saint is wearing the dark habit of the Jesuits, which has a sense of volume achieved thanks to the glazes applied to the black tones.

The composition and treatment of light are reminiscent of Saint Francis Borgia Assisting a Dying Man in which Goya also uses a curtain in the background which shades the light entering through the window. The use of these curtains for a theatrical effect, which reached the height of its popularity in the baroque period, gives the scene a mysterious air, as well as controlling the light and allowing a rich range of shading. The composition is simple yet noble. The style of the painting is very close to the neoclassical, reminiscent of the works Goya painted for the Convent of Santa Ana de Valladolid.

The date of this work varies according to the author. In the end, all authors agree that the work must have been completed between 1798 and 1800 as proposed by José Luis Morales y Marín and Arturo Ansón, since the convent was built in 1798 and the decoration must have been carried out in the following years.