This painting, one of the series produced by Wilkie in Madrid between October 1827 and May 1828, was inspired by the Spanish War of Independence (1808 – 14). Wilkie depicts a Carmelite monk offering a resistance fighter a light for a cigar – the smallest of gestures invested with conspiratorial overtones. This detail demonstrates Wilkie’s capacity to transform an everyday incident into one with broader meaning. Purchased by George IV, 1829