Fray Miguel del Pozo (c. 1655-1712/3) was a Mercedarian friar in Málaga, remembered for his special devotion to the sacred image of Jesús de Viñeros and his witnessing of a miracle related to the icon which bolstered the fame of his order. The Real Hermandad de Viñeros de Málaga (Royal Brotherhood of Vintners of Málaga) was formed on 12 January 1502 by the Catholic Monarchs as a civic fraternity uniting vineyard workers in the important wine-growing region of southern Castile. A religious brotherhood soon developed under the same aegis, both groups having their seat in the convent church of Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Our Lady of Mercy).

In this portrait, Miguel del Pozo wears the arms of the Mercedarians and gazes at the miraculous image of Jesus of the Vintners, which he cradles in his left arm. The painting was acquired by the Hispanic Society in 1921 as the work of Francisco de Zurbarán, and previously bore a non-original signature of that artist. In 1944, Martín Soria published the present work as a rare figural painting by Fray Sánchez Cotán, the Spanish painter better known for his still lifes. The attribution to Cotán was repeated by César Pemán and Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño in their publications of 1947 and 1958. Paul Guinard published the present picture twice, in his 1960 and 1988 monographs on Zurbarán, as a possible workshop copy or a copy after a lost original.