Saint Bonaventure and Saint Anthony of Padua

Most Cusco School painting left no signature — it was produced by workshops, sold through dealers, and attributed by style rather than name. This small canvas is a documented exception: it is attributed to Basilio Santa Cruz Pumacallao, a contemporary of Diego Quispe Tito and one of the small handful of Cusco painters whose individual hand art historians can actually track across multiple works.

The two Franciscan saints — Bonaventure, the theologian-cardinal, and Anthony of Padua, shown here with the Christ child he was famously said to have held in a vision — are rendered with a controlled, almost miniature intimacy that fits the painting's small scale; this was likely made for private devotion rather than a church wall.

A named hand, in a tradition mostly defined by its anonymity — that alone makes this worth close attention.