La nascita della Vergine

Murillo painted this in 1661 for a chapel in Seville Cathedral, at the height of his reputation in the city. It shows the newborn Mary being washed and tended by women and small angels, a domestic scene lit like a stage. What happened to it later says a lot about how art moved in those years. During the Peninsular War, marshal Soult, one of Napoleon's commanders, took a liking to Murillo and had this canvas carried off to France along with others. That is why a picture made for a Seville altar now hangs in the Louvre. Notice how Murillo keeps the holy moment ordinary, the light falling on cloth and basin and the quiet business of a birth.