Saint Euphemia

In the Seville of the 1630s Zurbarán's workshop produced young women saints in numbers, dressed in silk and carrying whatever had killed them. This one is named in small letters at the upper right, Santa Eufemia. Euphemia was a Christian of Chalcedon, on the shore opposite Constantinople, who refused to sacrifice to the war god Ares and died in the persecutions of the early 300s. The saw is what her legend hands her. The canvas was painted between 1635 and 1640 and is small, 83 centimetres high and cut off at the chest, which is why the museum takes it for a picture made for a private house rather than a church. A full-length Euphemia hangs in Genoa, and specialists have gone back and forth over which of the two came first. This one stayed in private hands until 1970, when it reached the Prado in the bequest of Concepción de Rábago.