Murillo

moo-ree'lyo (1617-1682), the most eminent of Spanish painters. He was born of poor parents at Seville. He studied at Madrid. In the early days of his poverty he painted small madonnas by the dozen for sale to the churches in the Spanish provinces of Mexico and Peru. In 1813 the Duke of Wellington tried in vain to buy his greatest painting, St. Anthony of Padua, from the Cathedral of Seville for as many gold pieces as could be placed on the enormous canvas. One picture, the Conception was sold in 1852 to the Louvre in France for $120,000. Murillo's pictures may be classed in two groups. Those of his youth are chiefly of beggars, gypsies, and rural life. The other group includes madonnas and other Scriptural subjects. Among these are St. Anthony of Padua, Moses, Striking the Rock, Abraham and the Angels, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, St. Peter Released from Prison, and St. Elizabeth. In 1648 Murillo married a woman of fortune. His home at Seville became the resort of artists and people of fashion. In 1660 he founded the art academy of Seville and became its president. While painting an altar piece for the church of the Capuchins at Cadiz he fell from a scaffold. He was borne home to Seville but did not recover. At one time, it is said to oblige a cook, he painted the Virgin on a napkin. It is still known as the "Virgin of the Napkin." See Painting