El rey Ezequías haciendo ostentación de sus riquezas ante los legados del rey de Babilonia

This 1789 composition depicts the biblical story from 2 Kings 20 of King Hezekiah of Judah displaying his treasury to the envoys of Babylon — an act of pride that the prophet Isaiah condemned as the cause of the future Babylonian captivity. The subject combined the appeal of an exotic oriental setting — Babylon, its ambassadors, the gleaming treasury — with a moral lesson about the vanity of worldly wealth and the dangers of pride before God. López Portaña painted this for the Valencian church or a related institution at the beginning of his career, when biblical and religious narrative subjects were central to his practice. The Museu de Belles Arts de València holds this work as an example of the ambitious history painting tradition that Spanish academies required of their most talented students.

The subject demanded a complex multi-figure composition with elaborate architectural setting and richly dressed figures — a full demonstration of academic history painting competency. López Portaña manages the crowd of figures and the gleaming treasures with the compositional skills trained through academic study, organizing the scene around the central action of Hezekiah's display. The palette is warm and oriented toward the golden treasures that are both the literal and moral subject.