Bartolomé Esteban Murillo ( , ; late December 1617, baptised 1 January 16183 April 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively realistic portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive record of the everyday life of his times. He also painted two self-portraits, one in the Frick Collection portraying him in his 30s, and one in London's National Gallery portraying him about 20 years later. In 2017–18, the two museums held an exhibition of them.

Childhood

Murillo was probably born in December 1617 to Gaspar Esteban, an accomplished barber surgeon, and María Pérez Murillo. It is clear that he was baptized in Santa Maria Magdalena, a parish in Seville in 1618. After his parents died in 1627 and 1628, he became a ward of his older sister Ana and her husband, Juan Agustín Lagares, who coincidentally also happened to be a barber. Murillo seldom used his father's surname, and instead took his surname from his maternal grandmother, Elvira Murillo. He probably began his artistic career, either during those years or slightly beforehand. Murillo began his art studies in Seville in the workshop of Juan del Castillo, Murillo's uncle and godfather, as well a skilled painter in his own right. While it is likely that, like many Sevillian painters, Murillo took inspiration from religious images in an attempt to attract the lucrative American market, there is actually little evidence of Murillo traveling to Madrid. Similar claims, attributed by Joachim von Sandrart, a German historian of the time, argue that Murillo also travelled to Italy during the same period. Palomino denies these assertions, arguing that they stem from a refusal of foreigners to acknowledge that Murillo's success had come from Spain, and Spain alone.

Palomino, instead, argued that Murillo's skill came from hours spent in his room, studying the natural world. He would use these skills when painting for the public, for the Franciscan convents throughout Spain, and for his fellow painters, who until then had little knowledge of his existence or art. In either case, his style could easily have been learned without leaving Seville from its previous generation of artists, such as Francisco de Zurbarán or Francisco de Herrera the Elder.

thumbnail|[[Adoration of the Shepherds (Murillo, Madrid)|The Adoration of the Shepherds, , Museo del Prado]]

After another period in Madrid, from 1658 to 1660, he returned to Seville. Here he was one of the founders of the Academia de Bellas Artes (Academy of Art), sharing its direction, in 1660, with the architect Francisco Herrera the Younger. This was his period of greatest activity, and he received numerous important commissions, among them the altarpieces for the Augustinian monastery, the paintings for Santa María la Blanca (completed in 1665), and others. Google marked the 400 years since Murillo's birth with a doodle on 29 November 2018.

Public collections

thumb|right|The Murillo Room in the [[Museum of Cádiz]]

The Museo del Prado in Madrid; Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia (such as Boy with a Dog); and the Wallace Collection in London are among the museums holding works by Murillo. His painting "The Coronation in Heaven of the Mother of God" is on display at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown Kentucky.

His painting Christ on the Cross is at the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego. Christ After the Flagellation is at the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois. His work is also found at the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. The National Gallery of Ireland holds a series of six paintings by Murillo depicting the parable of the prodigal son.

Selected works

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File:Bartolome Esteban Perez Murillo 012.jpg|Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, , Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel

File:Personificación del Verano.jpg|Young Man with a Basket of Fruit or Personification of Summer, , National Galleries of Scotland

File:La gallega de la moneda.jpg|The Girl with a Coin or Girl of Galicia, , Museo del Prado

File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - The Young Beggar.JPG|The Young Beggar, , Musée du Louvre, Paris

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo - Trauben- und Melonenesser.jpg| Boys Eating Grapes and Melon, , Alte Pinakothek, Munich

File:San Jerónimo leyendo (Murillo).jpg|St. Jerome, , Museo del Prado

File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - Saint Peter in Tears - Google Art Project.jpg|St. Peter in Tears, , Bilbao Fine Arts Museum

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo 020.jpg|The Virgin of the Rosary, , Museo del Prado

File:Isidor von Sevilla.jpeg|St. Isidore of Sevilla, 1654, Cathedral of Seville, Spain

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo 023.jpg|Annunciation, , Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - Adoration of the Magi - Google Art Project.jpg|Adoration of the Magi, , Toledo Museum of Art

File:Bartolome murillo-san ildefonso.jpg|Apparition of the Virgin to St. Ildefonsus, , Museo del Prado

File:Murillo, Bartolomé Estéban - Three Boys - Google Art Project.jpg|Three Boys, , Dulwich Picture Gallery

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo 021.jpg|The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial, , Museo del Prado

File:Murillo Santa Justa.jpg|St. Justa, , Meadows Museum

File:SantaRufinaMurillo.jpg|St. Rufina, , Meadows Museum

File:Murillo - The Immaculate Conception Fd105349.jpg|The Immaculate Conception, , National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

File:Murillo Descanso en la huida a Egipto.jpg|Rest on the Flight into Egypt, , Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

File:Curacion del paralitico Murillo 1670.jpg|Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, 1670, National Gallery, London

File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - Saint Rose of Lima - Google Art Project.jpg|Saint Rose of Lima, , Lazaro Galdiano Museum, Madrid

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo - Virgin and Child with St Rosalina of Palermo - WGA16389.jpg|Virgin and Child with Saint Rose of Viterbo, , Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

File:The Barber Institute of Fine Arts - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - The Marriage Feast at Cana.jpg|The Marriage Feast at Cana, , The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

File:The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt (Bartolomé Esteban Murillo) - Nationalmuseum - 21281.tif|The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

File:Murillo - Vendedores de fruta.jpg|The Little Fruitseller, c.1670–1675, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

File:Bartolomé Esteban Murillo - La Inmaculada Concepción del espejo.jpg|The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 1678, Museo de Arte de Ponce

File:Murillo immaculate conception.jpg|The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables, 1678, Museo del Prado

File:Saint Raphael.JPG|St. Raphael the Archangel with Bishop Domonte, c. 1680, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

File:Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo 012.jpg|Boy with a Dog, (1655-1660), Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

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References

Further reading

  • Murillo's painting The Spanish Page is the subject of an ekphrastic poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837. See
  • Xavier F. Salomon and Letizia Treves, Murillo: The Self-Portraits. New York: The Frick Collection, 2017. Accompanied exhibition
  • Scholarly articles in English about Bartolomé Esteban Murillo both in web and PDF @ the Spanish Old Masters Gallery
  • Paintings in Museums and Public Art Galleries Worldwide
  • Murillo Biography, Style and Critical Reception
  • Murillo Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
  • Murillo at ArtRenewalCenter
  • , engraved by Robert Graves for The Easter Gift, 1832, with a verse by Letitia Elizabeth Landon