St Pedro de Arbués, inquisitor of the kingdom of Aragón, was murdered in 1485 on the steps of the main altar of the Cathedral of El Salvador in Zaragoza, of which he was a canon, when he was starting the morning prayers. On the occasion of his beatification in 1664, Murillo was commissioned with the canvas for the chapel of the Inquisition in Seville, which today is conserved at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

He also did another canvas, of similar format, conserved in the Vatican’s collections. The piece in the BBVA Collection, which Diego Angulo judged to be of greater quality and refinement than the one in the Vatican, maintains the shafts of light on the saint and the angel holding the palm originally featured in the print that became the model for the iconography of his martyrdom, used in these compositions and in those of other artists. The print had been produced in 1647 by Pedro de Villafranca (1615-1684) to illustrate the life of this inquisitor from Aragón written by García de Trasmiera.

The loose brushwork, the refinement in the modelling of volume, and the prevalence of a dark atmosphere are elements characteristic of this type of preparatory works, which Julián Gállego calls “black Murillos”. However, its dimensions lead one to suspect that it may be a copy of a painting meant for private prayer. Its exceptional quality endorses the assertion that this piece was made by the master during one of the best periods of his artistic production, when he was producing the great paintings of the church of Santa María la Blanca in Seville.

The composition is structured in a play of diagonal lines that converge in the figure of the saint, kneeling at the high altar of the cathedral, where his killers surprise him from behind and stab him viciously. The violence of the two murderers stands in contrast to the serenity and stillness of the figure of the inquisitor. The scene is witnessed by a young angel that introduces a touch of lyricism in the composition. He carries the palm of martyrdom in his right hand, while his left hand points to the glory that awaits the martyr.