The setting is the choir of the Capuchin Monastery on the Via Veneto, Rome, which was at the time a fashionable burial place for wealthy Roman citizens. Its painting collection, partly visible on the dimly lit walls in the picture, contained the St. Francis by Caravaggio. The earliest known version of the Granet composition, which bears a date of 1815, is that in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A painting of this subject was bought by Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and it may be the New York picture. It is possible, however, that the artist had worked on the composition for some time before. He certainly continued to paint replicas often with slight variations, the most prestigious being the one he presented personally to the Czar Alexander I of Russia in 1821, which had been painted in 1818. Not only did the artist repeat the composition with enthusiasm, moreover he also introduced nuns into other versions and the picture was much copied by other artists. The version here is by far the smallest and could well be a preparatory work for the series of compositions, all of which are very much larger.

‍