On 17 January 1626, Zurbarán signed a contract with the prior of the Dominican monastery San Pablo el Real in Seville, agreeing to produce 21 paintings within eight months.

To these rigid methods, Zurbarán is said to have adhered throughout his career, which was prosperous, wholly confined to Spain, and varied by few incidents beyond those of his daily labour.

Zurbaran's "incapacity or possibly scorn for narrative" makes the actions depicted in his compositions difficult to interpret without foreknowledge of the subject.

Zurbaran had difficulty painting deep space; when interior or exterior settings are represented, the effect is suggestive of theater backdrops on a shallow stage.

[19] The art historian Julián Gállego suggests that Zurbarán's early training "may have left him with a taste for Mannerist composition ... with the furniture and accessories placed on the slant" in an ambiguous space devoid of unitary perspective.

[22] Zurbarán's late works, such as the Saint Francis (c. 1658–1664; Alte Pinakothek) show the influence of Murillo and Titian in their looser brushwork and softer contrasts.

[24] This is Zurbarán's largest composition,[25] containing figures of Christ, the Madonna, various saints, Charles V with knights, and Archbishop Deza (founder of the college) with monks and servitors, all the principal personages being more than life-size.

[27] In Santa Maria de Guadalupe he painted multiple large pictures, eight of which relate to the history of St. Jerome;[3] and in the church of Saint Paul, Seville, a figure of the Crucified Saviour, in grisaille, creating an illusion of marble.

[28] Also in the 1630s he was commissioned to provide canvases representing the Labours of Hercules, the only group of mythological subjects from the hand of Zurbarán, which were installed in the Hall of Realms in Madrid.

[29] A fine example of his work is in the National Gallery, London: a whole-length, life-sized figure of a kneeling Saint Francis holding a skull.

[citation needed] Zurbarán was the subject of a major exhibition in 1987 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which traveled in 1988 to Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris.