03 — ARTWORK
Immaculate Conception
MURILLO, Bartolomé Esteban · 1678 →
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas, 274 x 190 cm
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1000 × 1442 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Immaculate Conception c. 1678 Oil on canvasA woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means., 274 x 190 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid
Murillo received a commission from the hospital of Venerable Sacerdotes for a significant group of paintings. This institution had been started by Justino de Neve in 1676 as an asylum for retired members of the clergy. Murillo was asked to paint three pictures soon after the construction was started. One of these proved to be his culminating version of the Virgin Immaculate, a glorious picture in which the last of the traditional attributes is eliminated except for the crescent moon, and the putti, flutter around the triumphant Virgin, some painted so thinly that they seem to dissolve into the fluffy clouds.
In 1813 the painting was taken to France by Marshal Soult. It was returned to the Prado in 1941.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r9af8db64ffd1cc,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Immaculate Conception by MURILLO, Bartolomé Esteban},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-11},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/murillo-bartolom-esteban-r2090ffefe35947/immaculate-conception-r9af8db64ffd1cc},
urldate = {2026-09-11},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-11. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
