The present scene depicts Saint Peter in prison as an angel releases him from his chains. In the catalogue published to mark the exhibition De Herrera a Velázquez (2005), Benito Navarrete related this work to another painting of the same subject by Juan de Roelas, also from Seville, which is thought to have inspired Herrera when creating his composition.

In the Saint Peter from the Casacuberta Marsans Collection, Navarrete highlights the loose brushwork, the rich colour palette characteristic of Herrera’s work —with a predominance of pinks, yellows, ochres, and blue-green tones— and the overall crispness of the finish. The angel’s profile has its iconographic source in the prints by Jacob Matham after compositions by Abraham Bloemaert, particularly The Virgin and the Angels, in which a figure appears wearing similar clothing.

The work can be dated around 1636–1640, within Herrera’s later production, based on the similarities between the figure of Saint Peter and the one depicted in The Temptations of Saint Job, preserved at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen and dated 1636.