Tobias heilt seinen Vater

This biblical composition from 1789 depicts the story from the Book of Tobit in which the young Tobias, guided by the angel Raphael, heals his father Tobit's blindness by applying the gall of a miraculous fish to his eyes. The subject was popular in Spanish religious painting for its combination of filial devotion, miraculous healing, and the presence of the angelic guide — a narrative that offered painters opportunities for tender domestic pathos alongside the supernatural. López Portaña painted this early in his career, when religious commissions from the Valencian church provided his primary income before court appointments brought him to Madrid. The Museu de Belles Arts de València holds this work as an example of the late eighteenth-century religious painting tradition in which López Portaña was trained.

The composition brings the healing touch into close focus, concentrating the viewer's attention on the physical contact between son and father. The angel Raphael's presence in the composition introduces a celestial light source that creates a structured tonal gradient between the miraculous and the earthly. López Portaña's early style shows the influence of the Valencian academic tradition with its emphasis on controlled drawing and warm palette.