Bartolome Esteban Murillo

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Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
(Circle of)
Spanish, 1617-1682

Christ as Salvator Mundi

Oil on Canvas 34 x 29 in. (87 x 74 cm)

(in a 19th-century French exhibition frame)

	Provenance: The Oratory at Marino, County Dublin, Ireland, until ca. 1952; Tormey's Auction Rooms, Dublin, 1952; Capt. Luke Kerr of Dublin and London; thence by descent. Museums and Collections: The Seville Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum; The Louvre, Paris; The National Gallery, London; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Prado, Madrid; The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; The Wallace Collection, London; The Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna; The Cleveland Museum of Art; The Galleria Borghese, Rome; The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; The Alte Pinakotek, Munich; and countless other museums and private collections

	Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was born in Seville in 1617, and died there in 1682. Just as Rembrandt dominated Dutch art in the 17th Century, so it was in Spain that the great painter Bartolomé Murillo stood as a colossus over the Spanish artists. It is believed that most of the great Spanish painters of the 17th century, spent at least some time in his studio, or were certainly directly influenced by its output. In 1645, he painted a series of 11 pictures of the history of the Franciscan order for a monastery. These brought him immediate fame, and for the remainder of his life he was the favorite painter of the wealthy and pious Andalusian capital. His early works show the influence of Zurbarán in the dramatic use of light and shadow. In 1660 he was instrumental in founding the Seville Academy, of which he shared the presidency with the younger Francisco de Herrera. From 1670 to 1682, Murillo painted many of his major religious works, including those for the Charity Hospital and for the Capuchin convent (The Seville Museum). These religious works, particularly the Madonnas, are noted for their sweetness of mood. In 1682, while working on the Marriage of St. Catherine for the Capuchin church of Cádiz, Murillo fell from a scaffold and died as a result of his injuries.