Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 'Self Portrait', about 1670

Self Portrait

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Room 30

About the work

Overview

Murillo has painted himself inside a fictive frame, his right hand emerging from the stone surround as if he were coming alive and entering our space.

This self portrait was probably painted in about 1670, when Murillo was in his early fifties – his hairline is receding and his moustache turning grey. He is dressed in black, with a delicate lace white collar known in Spain as a valona. He looks out at us, his pose both relaxed and self-assured.

The objects laid out on the ledge below – a palette and brushes, a red chalk drawing, a chalk holder, a ruler and compass – tell us that Murillo is an artist. The Latin inscription reveals that he painted this self portrait to ‘fulfil the wishes and prayers’ of his children.

In-depth

Murillo probably painted this self portrait in about 1670, when he was in his early fifties – his hairline is receding and his moustache turning grey. He is dressed in black, with a delicate lace collar known in Spain as a valona. He looks out at us, his pose both relaxed and self-assured. The warm tones of his skin contrast with the cool stone of the frame on which he rests his hand. It is decorated with scrolls and foliage, an effect commonly seen in engraved portraits or in book frontispieces.

He has placed himself inside a fictive frame, his right hand emerging from the stone surround as if he were coming alive and entering our space. This motif is something you see in seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings and engravings, and these may have been Murillo’s source of inspiration – such works were available in collections in Seville, where Murillo spent his entire career.

The objects laid out on the ledge below – a palette and brushes, a red chalk drawing, a chalk holder, wooden ruler and compass – tell us that Murillo is an artist. The drawing may allude to Murillo’s central role in establishing an academy for artists in Seville in 1660; there, students were taught the importance of drawing from life. The ruler and compass suggest he painted according to mathematical laws of perspective and proportion. The blobs of paint on the palette are built up to look three-dimensional, adding to the illusion that it shares our space – like the framed Murillo, who seems to have just put it down.

The Latin inscription explains that Murillo painted himself ‘to fulfil the wishes and prayers of his children’. By the time this picture was painted only four of his nine children were still alive – among them his son Gaspar, who may have owned this self portrait. In 1682, the year of Murillo’s death, the artist’s friend and patron, the Flemish silk merchant Nicolás Omazur, ordered an engraving to be made after this self portrait in Brussels; it soon became the best-known image of the artist.

Our self portrait was one of the first paintings by Murillo to arrive in England in the early eighteenth century, and may have inspired the British painter William Hogarth to make significant changes to his own self portrait, The Painter and his Pug (Tate Gallery, London), after seeing it in the collection of the Prince of Wales.

This is one of only two known self portraits by Murillo. The other, now in the Frick Collection, New York, shows the artist in his thirties and was owned by his son Gaspar.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Self Portrait
Artist: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Artist dates: 1617 - 1682
Date made: about 1670
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 122 × 107 cm
Inscription summary: Signed; Inscribed
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1953
Inventory number: NG6153
Location: Room 30
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 17th-century Spanish Frame

Provenance

Presumably inherited after Murillo’s death (3 April, 1682) by his son, Gaspar, and transported to Brussels later in the same year at the instigation of Nicolas Omazur. Gaspar is recorded by Palomino as the owner only of the self-portrait in a golilla, suggesting that no. 6153, if also owned by him, was relinquished before his death (1709). It presumably remained in Seville in the early years of the eighteenth century (see portrait of 1711 by Tobar). Probably acquired at about this time by Sir Daniel Arthur, ‘a rich Irish merchant who died in Spain’, passing by February, 1729, to a Mr. Bagnall (Bagnal, or Bagnols), who married Arthur’s widow. Sold before 1740, or in that year, to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and recorded in his possession in 1747 and 1750. Acquired by Sir Lawrence Dundas († 1781), perhaps at the time of Frederick’s death in 1751. Recorded for certain in the Dundas sale, 31 May, 1794 (25; £105), and bought by Lord Ashburnham, as recorded in a MS of his collection of 1793 (sic), p. 8, no. 95. Seen with other pictures from the Dundas sale at Ashburnham’s house in Dover Street in 1804. Earl of Ashburnham sale, 20 July, 1850 (50; £829 10sh.; at this sale it was hoped that the National Gallery would be able to buy the picture). Recorded in the following year in the collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp House. Exhibited: British Institution, 1855 (no. 53); Manchester, Art Treasures, 1857 (no. 640); Leeds, 1868 (no. 342); South Kensington Museum, 1876–80 (no. 77); London, The New Gallery, 1895/6 (no. 103); London, Grafton Galleries, 1913/14 (no. 99); Royal Academy, 1920/1 (no. 83); Birmingham, Art Treasures, 1934 (no. 7); London, Agnew’s, Pictures from Althorp, 1947 (no. 22); Edinburgh, Arts Council, Spanish Paintings, 1951 (no. 28). Bought from Earl Spencer in 1953.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised by Allan Braham, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School’, London 1988; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2011

Realisme(s): L'empremta de Courbet

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

8 April 2011 - 10 July 2011
2012

Murillo and Justino de Neve: The Art of Friendship

Museo Nacional del Prado

26 June 2012 - 30 September 2012

Fundación Focus-Abengoa

9 October 2012 - 20 January 2013

Dulwich Picture Gallery

6 February 2013 - 19 May 2013
2016

Meta-painting. A Journey to the Idea of Art

Museo Nacional del Prado

15 November 2016 - 19 February 2017
2017

Murillo: The Self-Portraits

The Frick Collection

1 November 2017 - 11 February 2018

The National Gallery (London)

28 February 2018 - 21 May 2018

Bibliography

1683

J. von Sandrart, Der teutsche Akademie, Nuremberg 1683
1715

A. Palomino, El museo pictorico, y escala óptica, 3 vols, Madrid 1715
1800

J.A. Ceán Bermúdez, Diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las bellas artes en España, Madrid 1800
1806

J.A. Ceán Bermúdez, Carta… sobre el estilo y gusto en la pintura de la Escuela Sevillana, Cádiz 1806
1850

Christie & Manson, Catalogue of the Entire and Valuable Collection of Italian, Flemish, Dutch and French Pictures: The Property of the Earl of Ashburnham, London, 20 July 1850
1894

Conde de la Viñaza, Adiciones al diccionario histórico de D. Juan Augustín Ceán Bermúdez, Madrid 1894
1947

E.K. Waterhouse, 'The Exhibition of Pictures from Althorp at Messrs. Agnew's', The Burlington Magazine, 1947
1951

E. Harris, 'Spanish Painting from Morales to Goya in the National Gallery of Scotland', The Burlington Magazine, XCIII/583, 1951, pp. 310-7
1955

The National Gallery, The National Gallery: 1938 - 1954, London 1955
1963

D.G. Carter, 'A Portrait of a Gentleman by Tovar', Bulletin of the Rhode Island School of Design, 1963, pp. 9-10
1970

N. MacLaren and A. Braham, The Spanish School, 2nd edn, London 1970
1981

D.A. Íñiguez, Murillo. Su vida, su arte, su obra, Madrid 1981
1982

M.B. Mena Marqués and E. Valdivieso, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo 1617-1682 (exh. cat. Museo Nacional del Prado, 8 October - 12 December 1982; Royal Academy of Arts, 15 January - 27 March 1983), Madrid 1982
1987

E. Harris, 'Velásquez and Murillo in Nineteenth Century Britain: An Approach Through Prints', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, L, 1987, pp. 148-59
1988

Maclaren, Neil, revised by Allan Braham, National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1988
1989

K. Rorschach, 'Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-51) as Collector and Patron', The Walpole Society, LV, 1993, pp. 1-76
1991

C. Brown, The Drawings of Anthony van Dyck, New York 1991
1991

H. Karge, Vision oder Wirklichkeit: Die spanische Malerei der Neuzeit, Munich 1991
1995

V.I. Stoichita, Efectul Don Quijote. Repere pentru o hermeneutica a imaginarului european, Bucharest 1995
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Daniel Sobrino Ralston, our CEEH Curatorial Fellow in Spanish Paintings, goes behind the frame of Murillo's 'Self Portrait' and asks what could be on Murillo's mind as he paints himself?

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What does Murillo's self portrait say about him? | National Gallery

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You've viewed 6 of 9 works

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 'Self Portrait', about 1670

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

Insights

More works by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo