Santas Justa y Rufina

These two are Justa and Rufina, sisters who by Seville's own tradition sold clay pots by the river and were put to death for their Christian faith under Roman rule. Murillo, a son of Seville, painted them around 1666 for a Capuchin convent in the city. He gives them the soft, warm handling he was loved for, but the telling detail is what they hold up between them, a model of the Giralda, the great bell tower of Seville's cathedral. Local belief held that the two saints had kept that tower standing through earthquakes that might have toppled it. So here the patrons of the city cradle its most famous landmark, while at their feet lie the potter's wares and the martyrs' palms that say who they were.