A rare iconographic¹ representation of the great Jesuit evangelist of the Orient, St. Francis Xavier, shown here on his death bed on the Island of Sancian at the entry to China, after the evangelisation of India.
He is represented here in his long black robe, wrought in gold, with vestiges of his cross (offered by St. Ignatius Loyola), a rosary with the cross hanging upside down, next to the belt tied in the middle. He agonises, reclining on a coverlet with rich fringe, accompanied by the converts, António da Santa Fé, a Chinese, and by his Indian servant, Christopher, under a hut made of stick and rare leaves for its roof.
The composition was finished off with a legend on the lower frame, which, after the restoration, could be read: (Des)EMBRO DE 1552, a clear reference to the year of his death.
Francis Xavier had left for India in 1541, in the company of the governor Martim Afonso de Sousa.
This must be a set sculpted by an image carver working in Madeira Island in the mid-17th century.

¹ Encontro de Culturas, Oito séculos de Missionação Portuguesa, Mosteiro de São Vicente de Fora, Lisboa, Comissária Geral, Maria Natália Correia Guedes, Julho-Dezembro de 1994, cat. XVI. 312, p. 277.