Henrique Henriques de Noronha's description of the retable of the old chapel of St. Sebastian (located in Funchal where the Largo do Chafariz is today, and demolished in the early 19th century) mentions the existence of "beautiful sheets or paintings, the martyr St. Vincent and St. Benedict the Abbot”¹, which flanked the figure of St. Sebastian. Everything points to these being the two boards with identical themes and dimensions, which are in the Museum of Sacred Art of Funchal today, coming from the Colégio Church. In fact, they did not originate in the Colégio, because they are not found in the inventories², and it is probable that they were taken there when the St. Sebastian Church was destroyed in 1803.
The painting that represents St. Vincent of Saragossa, that is, St. Vincent the Martyr, is an interesting example of the dialogue between the various artistic genres, which we can see in the clothing and in the attributes of the saint. St. Vincent is dressed as a deacon, with a richly decorated dalmatic, open on the sides and held by a tasselled cord, which fits in the tradition of the patterns of the brocade silks coming mainly from the Orient and which are amply reproduced, both in the paintings as well as in the gessoed sculptures of the era. Besides, the technique used is similar to that of the gessoed wood, the typical design of the stalks and floral stylisations being separated by a black line and the backgrounds filled with a hatched pattern that evokes the gold strings of the material.
In his right hand, he holds a palm in remembrance of his martyrdom and in his left hand, a model of a ship, whose decoration is much closer to the pieces of goldsmithery, especially the incense boats³, or even the sculpted finish work of the genuine forms of a ship. Note the rolls that are found both on the keel, as well as at the start of the forecastle and quarterdeck, in the imitation arcades, in short, in the ornamentalist option that succeeds in relegating to a secondary plane the more realistic light notes of the boards of the hull.
The figure is shown in a three-quarter view, occupying the left diagonal and permitting a view of a brief sketch of a background landscape, with a river, the arches of a bridge and Roman architecture, standing out with a clarity that disappears as we raise our looks toward the heaven laden with clouds, where we catch a glimpse of a halo. In this framework of clouds, the "three-quarter face" stands out, eyeing us with the severity that we find over and over again in the pictures of this period. The play of light skilfully resorts at times to contrasts and at others to softer transition passages, to underscore the off-centred composition and the expression of the look.
It is, in fact, a painting from a good Portuguese Mannerist workshop of the late 16th century, and one hypothesis is to attribute it to Francisco Venegas⁴, a Castilian based in Lisbon from the 1570s, whose work, of Sevillian training, is documented mainly in the next two decades. At the time, Seville was a melting pot where the Italianism promoted by Luís Vargas was prominent, of whom Venegas was a disciple, along with the Flemish, but also Italianised, presence of Pedro de Capaña. In this St. Vincent, there are portions of various contributions, offering on one hand a certain outline and care in detail, while on the other, a broad composition, a firm drawing, a light sfumato in the flesh tones and an almost Venetian lightness to the landscape. It shares with other known works by Venegas - such as the retable of the Church of Luz in Carnide and others attributed to him, such as those in the Varatojo Monastery - the accuracy of the drawing, the elegant and raised bearing of the figures, the sense of expressive and fantastic lighting and the liveliness of the execution.

¹ Henrique Henriques de Noronha, Memórias Seculares e Eclesiásticas para a Composição da História da Diocese do Funchal, C.E.H.A., 1996, p. 189.
² Transcribed by Rui Carita em Colégio dos Jesuítas do Funchal, vol. II, Funchal, SRE., 1987.
³ As an example, see the incense boat dated 1589, from the Câmara de Lobos Church, or the Parish Church of Ribeira Brava.
⁴ The lack of documentation leads us to resort to conjecture. For texts on this painter, read Victor Serrão and José Alberto Seabra de Carvalho and Juan Miguel Serrera in the catalogue A Pintura Maneirista em Portugal, Arte no Tempo de Camões, Lisbon, 1995.
Isabel Santa Clara, Das Coisas visíveis às invisíveis, contributos para o estudo da Pintura Maneirista na Ilha da Madeira (1540-1620), Vol.I e II, Doctoral Dissertation in the History of Art of the Modern Era, Universidade da Madeira, 2004.