Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban (c. 1618–1682)

Spanish painter. Active mainly in Seville, he painted sentimental pictures of the Immaculate Conception, and also specialized in studies of street urchins. His Self-Portrait (c. 1672; National Gallery, London) is generally considered to be one of his finest works.

Born in Seville, he studied art under Juan Castillo and, having saved a little money by hawking pictures at fairs and painting church pictures for export to South America, seems to have gone to Madrid, where he benefited by the study of the works of Titian, Rubens and van Dyck in the royal palaces, and received some encouragement from Velázquez. He married a woman of wealth in Seville 1645 and gained a fortune by his own efforts, receiving a vast number of commissions. The Academy of Seville was founded by him 1660, and he remained in the city during his years of success, declining the honour of becoming court painter to Charles II 1670. In early days he painted many pictures of peasant and street urchin types, but his later works were mainly religious and executed in his soft and melting estilo vaporoso, as in the Immaculate Conception (Prado), a favoured theme, of which there are many versions. The Melon Eaters (Munich) and Two Peasant Boys (Dulwich) are notable examples of his naturalism, traceable to Ribera and Velázquez but not free from the sentimentality which makes his religious works unpalatable to modern taste. Placed among the greatest masters until the 19th century, he has since been looked on with disfavour as the originator of much that was mawkish and empty in art. The dramatized genre of his Prodigal Son series shows his later work at its best. He employed a number of assistants, and many works still ascribed entirely to his hand may have been their work.