18th century

Saint Fernando gazes upward, paying homage to a vision of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child floating on a pillow of clouds surrounded by winged putti. The arched top and the squaring suggest that the artist planned a painted altarpiece.

The quick, loose strokes merely outlining the figures and the broadly applied wash alluding to their volume indicate that this preliminary drawing was made to work out the placement of the various characters. While the artist focused on the poses and gestures of the Virgin, Child, and saint, he ignored other, more intricate details. He simply suggested Jesus' features with a small dot for his eye and a single line indicating hair. Simple circles and arched lines suggest the heads and wings of the putti.

This painting illustrates the Roman widow Irene nursing Saint Sebastian back to health after he was discovered to be a Christian and shot with arrows by Roman archers. Writhing in pain, Saint Sebastian looks heavenward as Saint Irene pulls arrows from his pierced body. Vicente López y Portaña dynamically composed the figure of Sebastian, with one arm tied above his head and his other arm held by an attendant, in order to more clearly display the wounds on his upper body and to allude to the martyrdom of Christ. Sebastian's bent leg reveals the bleeding gash from which Irene has already removed one arrow. As she leans toward Sebastian's knee, she carefully pulls the saint's flesh in order to extract a second arrow. In the foreground, the depiction of the armor and weapons Sebastian wore as a military captain signals that this event occurred in ancient Rome.

López y Portaña's luscious palette and creamy application of paint contrast with the drama and emotion of this religious story. Like Andrea Lilio's Figures Tending to the Wounded Saint Sebastian, this painting differs from representations that show the Saint bound to a tree or pillar, moments after the attack.