Martim Conrado belonged to the Portuguese proto-Baroque generation, whose mentors were Domingos da Cunha, Domingos Vieira Serrão, André Reinoso, Baltazar Gomes Figueira and José de Avelar Rebelo. In his work, he reveals training inspired by the Sevillian workshops and even from the Lisbon workshop of José de Avelar Rebelo, royal painter for D. João IV.
He was a contemporary of painters such as Josefa D'Ayala (from Óbidos) and Bento Coelho da Silveira.
A significant part of his work in Madeira¹ is normally signed, as in the present case, in red, in cochineal and dated 1653. No contract for the work for Madeira has been found yet, such as the one he made for the work for the Brotherhood of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Cathedral of Lisbon in 1647.
The painter would not have taken up residence on the island, but he did receive a lot of orders anyway. The painting of the Eleven Thousand Virgins must have been contracted in the 1640s, when the chapel with the invocation was concluded at the Church of the Colégio of the Jesuits in Funchal.
The local clientele naturally included the Jesuits, who ordered the painting which is analysed here.
Abiding by the norms established at the Council of Trent, its play of light and dark, the broad gestures and torsion of the forms reveal innovative creative concerns.
The dissemination of artistic novelties was carried out from the influx of the Renaissance, mainly through European engravings, which gained wide circulation.
In the painting of Eleven Thousand Virgins, he demonstrated his knowledge of the engraving by Jan Sadeler, which transposed in a very similar way the three known versions, in Funchal, Coimbra and Lisbon.

¹ "Algumas pinturas Religiosas dos séculos XVI e XVII, pertencentes à Fundação Berardo", Isabel Santa Clara e Rita Rodrigues, in Revista Islenha, n.º 38, Janeiro-Junho de 2006, DRAC, Madeira, pp. 55-69.