Bartolome Estaban Murillo: Humble Beginnings

"Self-Portrait" by Bartolome Esteban Murillo

"Diego de Silva, who is known to the world as Velazquez, and Bartolome Esteban, who like his great contemporary is more generally called by Murillo, had many points in common. They were both natives of Seville. Both embraced the pursuit of Art with the same singleness of purpose, and each achieved a brilliant career - the unblemished careers of men who, as has been written of one of them, 'in the height of worldly success never lost the kindness of heart and simplicity of disposition which had characterized the student years.'

However, their paths in life were placed wide apart, and from the first their aims were different. Velazquez, the eagle, soared in the rarefied atmosphere of the Court. He was robed in jewelled velvets, and was carried to his last resting place by nobles as became a Knight of Santiago. Murillo's way took him through shady cloisters and the dim-lit stillness of convents and cathedrals. From a life devoted to the Spanish Catholic religion and the companionship of priests, he passed to an honoured grave beneath a stone slab, still preserved behind the high altar of the Church of Los Menores.

Murillo was born in Seville as the year 1617 ended, and was baptised on the 1st of January, 1618. His parents were humble toilers in the city and nothing is recorded of Murillo's life until he had entered his eleventh year, when both his parents died in an epidemic. The lad with his little sister went to live with a kindly uncle who resided in Seville. But the uncle's means were meager, and young Murillo, who had already revealed his power in drawing was speedily transferred, as a non-paying apprentice, to the studio of Juan del Castillo, certainly one of the worst painters the school of Seville has produced."

To be continued

(Murillo, a Biography and Appreciation" by Albert Frederick Calvert.)