Claudio Coello, the son of a famous Portuguese sculptor, Faustino Coello, had studied painting under Francisco Rizi and was at first dominated by a newly popular exaggerated style.

Through the friendship of Juan Carreño de Miranda, he had secured access to the royal collections, in which he studied the works of Titian, Rubens, and other masters.

Josef Donoso probably taught him fresco painting, and they collaborated in the painting of churches and palaces in Madrid.

Coello decorated the ceiling of the vestry in Toledo cathedral Iin 1671; in 1683 he painted frescoes in the Augustinian church at Saragossa; and in 1684 he became painter to King Charles II.

Coello's masterwork is the altarpiece for the sacristy in El Escorial, “Adoration of the Holy Eucharist” (1685–90).

A fine arrangement of space in the Baroque style, it contains about fifty portraits, including that of Charles II.

A remarkable mixture of profound religious feeling and realistic portraiture, closely allied to the work of Velázquez and Carreño, it shows strong color and fine draftsmanship.

This last great work of the school of Madrid has been called a devotional picture, a historical scene, and a marvelous portrait gallery.

Appointed painter to the cathedral of Toledo in 1691, his success has been counterbalanced by the preference shown by the court to the Italian painter Luca Giordano, who had arrived in Spain in 1692 to decorate El Escorial.

Coello has attempted to halt the decline of Spanish art.

He dies in 1693 a disappointed and disheartened man.