The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables

Murillo painted this Immaculate Conception in Seville late in his life, around 1678, for Justino de Neve, a cathedral canon who ran the local hospital for aged priests. The Virgin rises on a bank of cloud and cherubs, weightless, in the soft blond light Murillo made his own. What happened to the canvas afterward is nearly as eventful as the painting. In 1813, during the Peninsular War, Napoleon's Marshal Soult looted it out of Seville and carried it to France. When his collection was sold in 1852 the Louvre paid just over 615,000 francs for it, said to be the highest price for any painting up to that time. It hung in Paris for nearly ninety years, then returned to Spain in 1941 in an exchange, and has been in the Prado ever since. The catalogue date recorded here should be checked against the accepted late dating before this text is published.