The Sacrifice of Isaac

1657 · Private collection

religious

The painting in every respect embodies the essence of the high Baroque in Seville, a movement principally identified with the work of Valdés Leal's near-contemporary, Murillo. The scene is a key event in the Old Testament, in which the faith of the great Hebrew patriarch undergoes the ultimate test, and as a result of his unshakeable belief in God leads to the proliferation of his line. The artist has chosen to depict the moment of highest drama, when the angel stays the hand of Abraham who is on the point of slaying his only son.

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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