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Virgin and Child

1670s
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 624

Murillo’s many depictions of the Virgin and Child were enormously successful: he endowed a conventional Catholic subject with newfound intimacy through soft modeling and naturalistic details such as this infant’s momentary diversion of attention from nursing, as if in response to the viewer’s presence. Like Zurbarán and Velázquez, Murillo was trained in Seville, where he spent his whole career. A copy of this painting was known to Cristóbal de Villalpando (ca. 1649–1714), a painter working in Mexico City, who inserted these exact figures into works for the cathedrals of Mexico City and Guadalajara.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Virgin and Child
  • Artist: Bartolomé Estebán Murillo (Spanish, Seville 1617–1682 Seville)
  • Date: 1670s
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 65 1/4 x 43 in. (165.7 x 109.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1943
  • Object Number: 43.13
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

Audio

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5160. Virgin and Child, Part 1

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More Artwork

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The Infant St. John the Baptist, Bartolomé Estebán Murillo Spanish, Pen and brown ink with brush and gray wash over black chalk underdrawing. Composition outlined with black chalk inner line and brush and gray wash outer line; framing lines ruled in pen and gray-brown ink, possibly by the artist himself
The Infant St. John the Baptist
Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
1618–82
The Nativity, Bartolomé Estebán Murillo Spanish, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over traces of leadpoint or soft black chalk
The Nativity
Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
ca. 1665–70
Standing Male Figure: Study for a Portrait, Bartolomé Estebán Murillo Spanish, Pen and brown ink over black chalk underdrawing on off-white paper (recto); black chalk (verso)
Standing Male Figure: Study for a Portrait
Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
1670–80
A Knight of Alcántara or Calatrava, Bartolomé Estebán Murillo Spanish, Oil on canvas
A Knight of Alcántara or Calatrava
Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
ca. 1650–55
The Crucifixion, Bartolomé Estebán Murillo Spanish, Oil on canvas
The Crucifixion
Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
ca. 1675

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