Joseph and Potiphar's Wife

The story comes from Genesis. Joseph, a slave in the house of the Egyptian official Potiphar, is seized by the arm by Potiphar's wife, who wants him. He pulls free and runs, leaving his cloak in her grip, and she will use that cloak to accuse him falsely. Murillo painted the moment of the grab and the flight around 1660, in Seville, where he spent his whole working life. The city around him had been gutted a decade before by a plague that killed close to half its people, and its long boom as Spain's gateway to the Americas was fading. Murillo kept busy through it, mostly with the tender Virgins and ragged children he is still known for. In that same year, 1660, he helped found a drawing academy in Seville and became its first head.