Prayer in the garden

The only painting of this theme in the collection of the 9th Count of Santisteban, it narrates the episode - present with few variations in three of the Gospels - which precedes the arrest, Passion and death of Jesus, in which he withdraws with three of his disciples after the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane and withdraws from them to pray. After an anguished prayer, he returns to his disciples and finds them asleep. The artist, with the light and colour and the diagonal composition in the centre of the painting, directs the eye to the main scene: the prayer and the signs of the Passion, the chalice and the cross carried by the angel, which evoke the words of Jesus: "Father, if you are willing, take this chalice from me; yet not my will but yours be done", leaving in the background the sequence of the sleeping apostles, which is barely visible in dark colours against a black background.