This painting, one of the series produced by Wilkie in Madrid between October 1827 and May 1828, was inspired by the Spanish resistance to the French occupation between 1810-14. Here, the smallest of gestures is invested with conspiratorial overtones, as a Carmelite monk offers a resistance fighter a light for his cigar, demonstrating Wilkie’s capacity to transform an everyday incident into one with broader meaning. Purchased by George IV in 1829