Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Spanish, 1617 - 1682

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Spanish Baroque painter (1617–1682)

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A barefoot man wearing tattered clothing, with his hands clasped at his chest, kneels at the feet of an old, bearded man in this almost square painting. The pair is flanked by five people on our right and a man, boy, and calf on our left. All the people have pale skin. The kneeling man faces our right in profile and tilts his head up to look at the old man who embraces him. The younger man has shaggy, dark brown hair and a heavy five o'clock shadow. A small white dog jumps at his dirty, bare feet. The old man has a long gray beard and wears a black skullcap over gray hair. His voluminous dusty rose-pink cloak drapes over a teal-blue robe. To our right of the pair are a child, a woman, and three men. Some look at the embracing men while the others look at each other. At the front of that grouping, two men have brown hair and wispy mustaches. One wears a golden-yellow tunic and holds a silver tray piled with a shimmering sky-blue and pale pink garment, a bright white shirt, and a pair of sandals. Just beyond him and looking into his face, the second man wears gray with a dark green cloak draped over one shoulder. He holds up a gold ring with a ruby-red stone. To our left of the embracing men, a smiling blond boy leads the calf into the scene. Just beyond him is a thin, muscular man carrying an ax over one shoulder as he gazes down at the boy. The scene is set in a courtyard with walls that extend back on either side. Billowing putty-gray and white clouds fill the background.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1667/1670, oil on canvas, Gift of the Avalon Foundation, 1948.12.1

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo · 1667/1670 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1948.12.1

Two women with pale skin look out at us from the other side of a rectangular window opening with a shadowy interior behind them in this vertical painting. On our right, in the lower third of the composition, one young woman leans toward us over her left arm, which rests along the window ledge. She bends her right arm and props her chin on her fist. She looks at us with dark brown eyes under dark brows. She has shiny chestnut-brown hair with a strawberry-red bow on the right side of her head, to our left. She has a straight nose, and her full pink lips curve up in a smile. She wears a gossamer-white dress with a wide neckline trimmed in dark gray, with another red bow on the front of her chest. Her voluminous sleeves are pushed back to her elbows. To our left, a second woman peeks around a partially opened shutter. She is slightly older, and she stands next to the first woman with her body facing us. She tilts her head and also gazes at us with dark eyes under dark brown brows. She has dark brown hair covered by an oyster-white shawl. She holds the shawl up with her right hand to cover the bottom half of her face. Her mouth is hidden but her eyes crinkle as if in a smile. Her left arm bends at the elbow as she grasps the open shutter. She also wears a white shirt pushed back to her elbows, and a rose-pink skirt. The frame of the window runs parallel to the sides and bottom of the canvas. The room behind them is black in shadow.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Two Women at a Window, c. 1655/1660, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.46

Two Women at a Window

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo · c. 1655/1660 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.46

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1650/1656, pen and brown ink with brown wash over red and black chalk on laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1978.105.1

The Adoration of the Magi

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo · c. 1650/1656 · pen and brown ink with brown wash over red and black chalk on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1978.105.1

Bibliography

1981

  • Angulo Iñiguez, Diego. Murillo: Su vida, su arte, su obra. 3 vols. Madrid, 1981.

1982

  • Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1617-1682. Exh. cat. Prado, Madrid; Royal Academy of Arts, London. London, 1982.

1990

  • Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 105.