Attributed to Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

In 1852 the collection of Marshal Soult, one of Napoleon's generals, was auctioned in Paris, and among the pictures was an Immaculate Conception by Murillo that Soult had taken from Seville during the French occupation. The Louvre paid 615,300 francs for it, at the time a record for a painting sold at auction. A name worth that much drew other pictures toward it, and Seville offered many candidates, because Murillo trained pupils and his soft, warm manner was imitated in the city long after his death.

Attributed to is the label a museum chooses when it believes the master painted a picture himself but cannot prove it. With Murillo the doubt usually runs between his own hand and those of his pupils, such as Francisco Meneses Osorio, who completed the last altarpiece Murillo left unfinished. The Immaculate Conception from the Soult sale returned to Spain in 1941 and now hangs in the Prado.