17th century Spanish school. Circle of JUAN DE VALDÉS LEAL (Seville, 1622 - 1690). "Tobias and the Archangel Saint Raphael". Oil on canvas. Relined. Size: 71 x 51 cm; 83 x 74 cm (frame). Placed in a mountainous landscape and on the bank of what looks like a stream, two figures, the Archangel Saint Raphael and Tobias, are presented in the foreground. A dark wooded landscape adds a certain dramatic presence to this tranquil landscape. The deuterocanonical book of Tobit or Tobit tells the story of the two who share this name in the Bible, father and son. The latter is accompanied by the Archangel Raphael, sent by God to his aid, on a journey from which he returns with remedies (taken from a fish that the archangel makes him catch in the waters of the Tigris River) for his father Tobiah's blindness and to scare away the demon that killed all the men Rachel married. It is this fishing event that is depicted in the oil painting. Due to its formal characteristics, this work can be related to the circle of Valdés Leal, a prolific and powerfully inventive artist active in Cordoba and Seville. Despite the difficult character with which he is portrayed in the sources, the fact is that Valdés Leal's work is quite varied and is in line with the painting that was being done in his circle. We do not know when he moved to Córdoba, although it is likely that he had already trained as an artist in his native city. It has been speculated that he was influenced by the workshop of Herrera the Elder, and also by the art of the Cordovan Antonio del Castillo, as possible influences for his first known signed and dated work, the Saint Andrew in the church of San Francisco in Cordoba, dated 1647. In it he was able to combine the monumentality of the figure of the saint with a naturalistic approach with visible success. In 1656 he settled in Seville, where he spent most of his life. In 1660 he was one of the founders of the Academy of Drawing, of which he became president in 1663. The following year Palomino set out on his trip to the court and to El Escorial, a journey that can still be understood as an apprenticeship, driven by his eagerness to become acquainted with the works of the great masters in the royal collections. In 1667 he joined the Brotherhood of Charity in Seville, whose founder had been Miguel de Mañara, the noble visionary author of the eschatological Discourse on Truth, to which Valdés would remain attached from then on. In 1671 Valdés Leal had the opportunity to work as an architect on the ephemeral decorations that the Seville cathedral had installed to celebrate the canonisation of Saint Ferdinand. Thanks to these works Palomino defines him as "a great draughtsman, perspectivist and architect". He also produced two engravings, reproducing his works in the cathedral, for Fernando Torres Farfán's book celebrating this event, which gives us an insight into his work as an architect. These are his most important works as a printmaker, although his engraving of the cathedral monstrance, a self-portrait and the posthumous image of Miguel de Mañara are also known. In 1672 he was in Cordoba, and Palomino took the opportunity to meet him in person. This gives added value to the Cordovan treatise writer's affirmation of Valdés Leal's literary interest, as he describes him as possessing "the ornament of all good letters, not forgetting those of poetry". Shortly before his death he suffered an illness that prevented him from continuing to work, forcing him to leave his commissions in the hands of his son, a painter in his workshop. Dimensions 71 x 51 cm; 83 x 74 cm (frame).