Attributed to Joseph Garcia (also Jose Garcia el Hidalgo, Jose Garcia Hidalgo, Josef Garcia Hidalgo - Villena, Spain 1646 - San Felipe, Chile 1719). "Santo Tomas de Aquino" (Thomas Aquinas) oil on canvas, late 17th to early 18th century. A beautiful painting attributed to Spanish Baroque artist Jose Garcia Hidalgo depicting Saint Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Dominican friar, priest, philosopher, and theologian during the 13th century. In this painting, the artist presents St. Thomas Aquinas wearing a traditional Dominican black and white habit, rosary beads, as well as a sun on his chest. Gazing upward as if engaged in thought, the saint holds a quill pen in his right hand and the text he is writing in his left. The table to the right holds more quill pens, a stack of books, and an hourglass. Beyond this are shelves of books in his library. All is rendered with striking tenebroso - a dramatic play of light and shadow characteristic of the Baroque period - and mounted in an elegant gold-tone frame fit with an engraved brass plaque that reads "Santo Tomas de Aquino / Pintura Colonial Siglo XVII".

Jose Garcia Hidalgo, was a Spanish Baroque artist and treatise writer. He trained in Rome where he was influenced by Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). He returned to Spain around 1670 and became a member of Juan Carreno de Miranda workshop in Madrid. In 1703 he became an honorary painter to Felipe V, and ran a drawing academy until his death. His paintings demonstrate many of the hallmarks of the Baroque period including the tenebrism of the Valencian school. Twenty of his works are held at the Museo del Prado including his portrait of Maria Luisa de Orleans, Queen Consort of Carlos II (ca. 1679), one of the few royally commissioned paintings together with that of Felipe V. (Source: Marques de Rafal Collection)