07 Works, Today, July 19th, is Saints Justa and Rufina's day, their story in art #200

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, (1617–1682)

St. Justa and St. Rufina, between circa 1665 and circa 1666

Oil on canvas

Height: 200 cm (78.7 in); Width: 176 cm (69.2 in)

Museum of Fine Arts of Seville 

The sisters are represented with the palms of martyrdom and with clay pots alluding to their status as ceramic vendors. In their hands they hold the tower of the cathedral of Seville , La Giralda, because according to tradition they avoided it's collapse in the earthquake of 1504.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. More on Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Saints Justa and Rufina are venerated as martyrs. They are said to have been martyred at Hispalis (Seville) during the 3rd century. The two saints are highly honored in the medieval Hispanic liturgy.

Seville, Published 1597

Their legend states that they were sisters and natives of Seville who made fine earthenware pottery for a living, with which they supported themselves and many of the city's poor. Traditionally, they are said to have lived in the neighborhood of Triana. Born of a poor but pious Christian family. During a pagan festival, they refused to sell their wares for use in these celebrations. In anger, locals broke all of their dishes and pots. Justa and Rufina retaliated by smashing an image of Venus.

Paolo Veronese (Caliari)

The Martyrdom of St. Justine, c. 1573

Oil on canvas

112 cm x 102 cm

 Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Paolo Caliari, known as Paolo Veronese (1528 – 19 April 1588) was an Italian Renaissance painter based in Venice, most famous for large history paintings of both religious and mythological subjects, such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi. With Titian, who was at least a generation older, and Tintoretto, ten years older, he was one of the "great trio that dominated Venetian painting of the cinquecento" or 16th-century late Renaissance. Veronese is known as a supreme colorist, and after an early period with Mannerist influence turned to a more naturalist style influenced by Titian.

His most famous works are elaborate narrative cycles, executed in a dramatic and colorful style, full of majestic architectural settings and glittering pageantry. His large paintings of biblical feasts, crowded with figures, painted for the refectories of monasteries in Venice and Verona are especially famous, and he was also the leading Venetian painter of ceilings. Most of these works remain in situ, or at least in Venice, and his representation in most museums is mainly composed of smaller works such as portraits that do not always show him at his best or most typical.

He has always been appreciated for "the chromatic brilliance of his palette, the splendor and sensibility of his brushwork, the aristocratic elegance of his figures, and the magnificence of his spectacle", but his work has been felt "not to permit expression of the profound, the human, or the sublime", and of the "great trio" he has often been the least appreciated by modern criticism. Nonetheless, "many of the greatest artists ... may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix and Renoir". More on Paolo Caliari

Unknown artist

Tortured on the rack

I have no further description of this artwork at this time

The city's prefect, Diogenianus, ordered them to be imprisoned. Failing to convince them to renounce their faith, he had them tortured on the rack and with iron hooks. This method also having failed, they were imprisoned, where they suffered from hunger and thirst.


They were then asked to walk barefoot to the Sierra Morena; when this did not break their resolve, they were imprisoned without water or food. Justa died first. Her body, thrown into a well, was later recovered by the bishop Sabinus. Diogenianus believed that the death of Justa would break the resolve of Rufina. However, Rufina refused to renounce her faith and was thus thrown to the lions. 

Briton Rivière, (1840–1920)

Una and the Lion

Oil on canvas

Private collection

Briton Rivière RA (14 August 1840 in London – 20 April 1920 in London) was a British artist of Huguenot descent. He exhibited a variety of paintings at the Royal Academy, but devoted much of his life to animal paintings.

Briton was educated at Cheltenham College and Oxford, where he took his degree in 1867. For his art training he was indebted almost entirely to his father. His paternal uncle Henry Parsons Rivière (1811–1888) was also a noted watercolourist.

His first pictures appeared at the British Institution, and in 1857 he exhibited three works at the Royal Academy, but it was not until 1863 that he became a regular contributor to the Academy exhibitions. 

Early in his career, Rivière made some mark as an illustrator. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1878, and a Royal Academician in 1881, and received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1891. More on Briton Rivière 

The lion in the amphitheatre, however, refused to attack Rufina, remaining as docile as a house cat. Infuriated, Diogenianus had Rufina strangled or beheaded and her body burned. Her body was also recovered by Sabinus and buried alongside her sister in 287 AD. More on Saints Justa and Rufina

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Santa Justa, circa 1665

Oil on canvas

Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas

For Bartolomé Esteban Murillo see above.

Diego Velázquez

Santa Rufina, circa 1629-1632

Oil on canvas

Height: 79 cm (31.1 in); Width: 64 cm (25.1 in)

Hospital de los Venerables, Seville, Spain

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist and impressionist painters, in particular Édouard Manet. Since that time, famous modern artists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works. More on Diego Velázquez

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, and 365 Saints, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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