Saint Anthony Abbot and St. Paul, the first hermit

Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul, the First Hermit, painted around 1634 and now in the Prado, is one of Velázquez's most unusual religious works — a landscape painting of almost northern European character with the two ancient hermits shown in three successive moments in a forested setting. The raven that brings them bread, Anthony's arrival at Paul's cave, and the lion digging the grave are all shown in a single continuous landscape. The painting's atmospheric treatment of the wooded setting, its cool silvery light, and its narrative organization within a landscape recall Flemish tradition and show a dimension of Velázquez's range rarely visible in his royal portraits and bodegones. The ascetic subject may reflect a private devotional commission.

The rocky desert landscape dominates the composition, with the two hermit figures small against the vast, barren terrain. Velazquez renders the stone and scrub with a naturalistic attention to texture and light that transforms the conventional desert setting into a specific, observable place.