Juan Pantoja de la Cruz painted a great number of state portraits with the combined forces of his studio, his attendants, apprentices, and collaborators. He was primarily a portrait painter to the royal family, (whom he accompanied on journeys to Valladolid, Burgos, Lerma and the Escorial), and to the higher aristocracy. Pantoja also painted religious works primarily commissioned by the Spanish Queen, Margaret of Austria, wife of Philip III. Pantoja's paintings of religious themes also contain many portraits as auxiliary figures as in The Birth of the Blessed Virgin (1603) in which he included the mother of the Queen. He painted still lifes as well, but, like his ceiling frescoes, these have not survived. Pantoja returned with the court to Madrid and he died there on 26 October 1608.