Christ Child with Passion Symbols (late 17th century) by Unknown Artist, Peru - Public Domain Catholic Painting

Religious paintings in private chapels often served both instructional and devotional purposes. Beginning in the sixteenth century, missionaries aiming to enforce Catholic doctrine and Christian morality on indigenous populations advocated domestic scenes of the Holy Family, such as The Carpenter’s Shop in Nazareth, as exemplars of appropriate family behavior. An oratory would also have been an ideal setting for a painting like the Christ Child with Passion Symbols, whose symbolic features rendered it especially fitting for devotion.