The crucified Christ appears to Saint Teresa of Avila

This version of The Crucified Christ Appears to Saint Teresa of Avila, also dated 1629 and in the Prado, is closely related to the other Cano treatment of the same subject from the same year and provides an opportunity to observe the artist exploring compositional variants of a newly established subject simultaneously. Teresa of Ávila, canonized in 1622, attracted intense devotional attention in the 1620s and 1630s, and multiple painters produced images of her visions in response to that demand. That Cano produced two versions of this subject in a single year suggests either that demand exceeded a single response or that he was working through different compositional approaches to the scene. The slight variations between the two Prado versions — in the posture of the saint, the angle of the vision, the quality of light — are instructive documents of how Baroque painters developed solutions to pictorial problems through repetition and variation.

Comparison with the related version reveals subtle differences in the figure's posture and the Christ vision's angle that indicate active compositional thinking rather than reproduction. The light source direction varies between versions, affecting the shadow distribution across the saint's habit.