La Madonna del tovagliolo

Murillo made this for the Capuchin friary on the edge of Seville, part of a large cycle he painted for the friars in the late 1660s. The Virgin holds the Christ Child forward as if handing him out to us, and he seems to lean bodily out of the round frame. The odd name came much later. In the 1830s a writer set down a story that a friar had begged Murillo for an image but could only offer a dinner napkin to paint on, and that the master obliged. It is almost certainly a legend, spun from Murillo's warm reputation among the Capuchins. The picture is in fact painted on canvas, and a good deal larger than any napkin.