Workshop by FRANCISCO BAYEU (Zaragoza, 1734 - Madrid, 1795). Providence presiding over the virtues and faculties of man". Oil on canvas. Relined. It conserves old frame of Carlos IV style. Measurements: 74.5 x 65.5 cm; 88 x 79 cm (frame). The conception of this scene, thought to be contemplated from below, and its figures indicate a great aesthetic relation with the fresco that is in the Royal Palace of Madrid titled "The Providence presiding over the virtues and the faculties of the man", which was concluded in 1771, by the artist Francisco Bayeu. Francisco Bayeu began his training in his native Saragossa, attending the workshop of Juan Andrés Merklein, a painter of Bohemian origin, and the drawing classes of José Luzán Martínez. In 1756 he was awarded the Extraordinary Prize at the San Fernando Academy, which earned him a scholar in 1758 to study for two years at the San Fernando Academy in Madrid. However, Bayeu left the academy only two months later becae of his disagreements with one of the professors, Antonio González Velázquez. He then returned to Saragossa and his financial situation becameplicated, as the death of his parents forced him to take charge of his family. He then began his career as a painter, carrying outmissions for churches and convents in the city. Around this time, in 1759, he married Sebastiana Merklein, the daughter of his master. During these years he developed the language of his youth, influenced by Lucas Jordán and Corrado Giaquinto. However, in 1762 Anton Raphael Mengs, the leading court painter, visited Saragossa and asked him to work with him on the decoration of the new Royal Palace. Thanks to Mengs's protection, Bayeu carried out vario decorativemissions for the Royal Sites, th establishing himself as one of the most outstanding painters of the day. These early works for the court included the fresco decoration of the vaults of the dining room in the queen's bedroom ("The Surrender of Granada") and the antechamber of the Princes of Asturias ("The Fall of the Giants"). His Baroque training is still evident in these works, but elements of his mature language can already be glimpsed, such as the elegance of the positions, the meticuloness, the neoclassical lighting effects and the perfect anatomical study. By the 1760s his neoclassical aesthetic was fully formed, marked by a clean, precise drawing and a palette that played with the contrast of reds and yellows over a tonality based on blues and greys, as can be seen in "Hercules on Olymp" (conversation room of the Princes of Asturias in the Royal Palace), "Apollo remunerating the Arts" (El Pardo) or "Providence presiding over the virtues and faculties of man" (room next to the gala dining room of the Royal Palace). Within his religio production of these years, the eleven fresco scenes illtrating the lives and miracles of Toledo saints in Toledo cathedral, works that were alreadypletely indebted to Mengs, are particularly noteworth