Mater Dolorosa

In 1744 Isabel de Farnesio, queen consort of Spain, bought pictures from the estate of Cardinal Gaspar de Molina in Seville, and this small canvas came with them. It is a bust of the grieving Virgin on a bare dark ground, painted between 1660 and 1670, with the light arriving from the side onto the face. Under the veil she wears a white wimple around the cheeks and throat, and its lifted edge throws the shadows that hold the head together. Her eyes are swollen from crying and still wet. Murillo made a companion to it, an Ecce Homo of the same size, so the two heads faced each other in a private room. The royal inventory of 1772 puts this one in the passage leading to the King's bedchamber in the new palace in Madrid.