Circle of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Seville 1618-1682)

The traditional attribution to José Antolínez (1635-1675), recorded by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell on the mount, can no longer be sustained. This is a copy after a drawing by Murillo in red and black chalk and similar in size, today in the British Museum, London (inv. 1858-7-24-I; J. Brown, Murillo: Virtuoso Draftsman, New Haven and London, 2012, no. 23). Another copy is in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (inv. DIB/16/40/8; M.P. McDonald, Renaissance to Goya: Prints and Drawings from Spain, exhib. cat., London, British Museum, 2012, p. 150, fig. 38). The same subject appears in another drawing by Murillo now in the Louvre, Paris (inv. 18.428; J. Brown, op. cit., no. 62) which is a study for a painting of the same figure, with two putti above, now in the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (J. Brown, op. cit., fig. 57).

We are grateful to Benito Navarrete Prieto for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing.