Miracle of St Ildefonsus

1661 · Private collection

religious

This painting is an example of Valdés Leal's weird, ecstatic style. St Ildephonsus, a seventh-century archbishop of Toledo, wrote an important treatise defending the purity of the Virgin, who, as a reward for his devotion, presented him with a priestly vestment. In this high-strung version of the miracle, Valdés allows his imagination to run riot.

About the Artist

Juan de Valdés Leal

1622 – 1690

Spanish painter and engraver, born in Seville, where he worked from 1656 after some early years in Cordova. With Murillo he helped to found an academy of painting there in 1660, and after Murillo's death in 1682 he was the leading artist in the city. Like Murillo, he was primarily a religious painter, but he was very different in style and approach. He had a penchant for macabre or grotesque subject-matter, and his style is characterized by feverish excitability, with a vivid sense of movement, brilliant colouring, and dramatic lighting. His most remarkable works are two large Allegories of Death (commissioned 1672) in the Hospital de la Caridad, Seville. He also polychromed Roldán 's great altarpiece in the Caridad.

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