Francis receives water by an angel

Juan Valdes Leal: Saint Francis receives the water blister.

Museum of Fine Arts of Seville.

Valdes Leal reflects in this composition, the moment when St. Francis is surprised by an angel who shows him a glass ampoule containing transparent water, symbolizing purity of soul that St. Francis hoped to achieve.

Valdes Leal was an Spanish painter and engraver, contemporary of Murillo, to whom he was also his greatest rival as a painter in Seville at that time. The two have often been compared on the rather artificial basis of their works' respective characters: while Murillo's were seen as the very embodiment of sweetness and tranquility; Valdés Leal's were practically the opposite: harsh, dramatic, and (in his best-known works at the church of La Caridad in Seville) even extremely gruesome. 

His production is quite varied, successfully merging the monumentality of the saint's figure with a naturalist approach. Later, his work he became a great draftsman, (expert in) perspective and architect. His work was somewhat irregular, but he proved very versatile in both his use of color and his application of vividly contrasted light, sometimes with skillfully rapid, paint laden brushstrokes.