Collecting Murillo in Britain and Ireland

Abstract

The ten essays in this volume present a fascinating picture of the taste for one artist, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), whose devotional images are widely known, but who is today much less appreciated than his two contemporaries, Velázquez and Zurbarán. Murillo’s importance in the eighteenth century for artists like Reynolds and Gainsborough made him exceptional among Spanish artists, whose works – until the unleashing of Spanish paintings on to the market as a result of the Napoleonic Wars – were hardly collected outside Spain. The collections at Apsley House, deriving from the gift to the Duke of Wellington from Ferdinand VII of 165 paintings, including twelve by Murillo, was exceptional. It was also unusual in being acquired by an individual who had not travelled or resided in Spain (apart, of course, from his military campaigns there). It is thus very rewarding to be offered this volume of detailed, well-researched essays,...