Decoration of the Capilla del Milagro

In 1678, Rizi started to fresco in a chapel founded by Juan Jos� de Austria, the illegitimate son of Philip IV, in the convent of the Descalzas Reales, where the prince’s illegitimate daughter had taken vows. The Capilla del Milagro, although tiny in scale, is replete with every device of pictorial illusionism. In order to impart a feeling of expansiveness to the space, Rizi painted a fictional colonnade, beyond which there is a view into an illusionistic, columned hall. On one wall, the artist created a false door, with a distant altar visible through a painted gate.