Made at the turn of the 15th and 16 th centuries, this piece shows a great affinity with the landscape backgrounds found in the panels by Vicente Macip (1475-ca.1545), with a strong Flemish influence, and its treatment of the figure is similar to the panels made by his son Juan de Juanes (ca.1523-1579), both of whom were key figures in the Valencian painting of this period.

The work depicts St. Augustine, one of the four great Latin Fathers of the Church. According to existing sources, he was born in 354 in Thagaste, near Hippo, in the north of Africa. During his youth he partook in the Manichaean heresy, as he reported in his Confessions, and his later conversion took place in Milan in 387 in answer to the prayers of his mother (St Monica) and the instruction of St Ambrose. The saint is represented while writing his most important work, City of God, during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals, to which there is a reference in the walled city that appears in the landscape seen out the window.

This panel must have been part of a large altarpiece, and would have been located on one side in the bottom part, where saints and patrons were usually featured. Its format was probably modified, since the halo is cut off at the top.