El casto José

Dated to 1837 and in the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes de Córdoba, El casto José (The Chaste Joseph) depicts the Old Testament narrative of Joseph's resistance to the advances of Potiphar's wife — a subject with a long artistic tradition reaching back to Guido Reni and Rembrandt. The theme of virtuous resistance to sexual temptation carried particular moral resonance in the Romantic period, when the heroism of the individual conscience set against social pressure was a central concern. Esquivel, painting this in 1837 during his final Sevillian years before settling permanently in Madrid, was clearly engaging with the grand history painting tradition — the scene required figures, dramatic emotion, and narrative clarity — alongside his primary career as a portraitist. The work's presence in Córdoba rather than Madrid or Seville suggests local collecting or institutional acquisition, evidence of the regional distribution of major nineteenth-century Spanish painting.

The narrative scene requires Esquivel to manage figure interaction and psychological drama simultaneously. Joseph's recoiling figure is placed in strong contrapposto, the body language of refusal made physically eloquent through the turn of the torso. Potiphar's wife — if present — would occupy the compositional focus of the temptation. Esquivel uses warm, Murilloesque flesh tones for the figures while contrasting them with cooler architectural and textile passages.