Spanish school of ca.1850. Follower of BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO (Seville, 1617 - 1682).
"The Good Shepherd.
Oil on canvas. With its original canvas.
With inscription on the back "Copy of the original by Murillo by D. Calisto Ortega y Matamoros, painter and restorer of the Royal Museum".
Measurements: 115 x 98 cm; 128 x 110 cm (frame).
Murillo has gone down in history as one of the great painters of children's themes, not only for his famous genre scenes featuring children, but also for representations such as this one, in which the Child Jesus appears in the biblical metaphor of the good shepherd who feeds and cares for his sheep. This type of image was a great success among Sevillian society at the time, and its devotional efficacy has remained intact over the centuries. In this type of work, which in many cases was intended for private worship, the artist showed himself to be a true master when it came to combining a wise and delicate style with a gentle and sweet content. However, as he had a powerful sense of composition, he endowed them with remarkable monumentality and balance. The architectural ruins in the background have a double meaning. On the one hand, they are part of a Virgilian tradition which is evident in literature and the plastic arts and which is very fond of the image of the shepherd among the fallen remains of a splendid past. On the other hand, Christian iconography frequently used the reference to classical ruins as a symbol of defeated paganism. The study of the colouring, in which cold shades predominate, led to the dating of this work to around 1660, which is now in the Museo del Prado. From that time onwards, Murillo's followers and different artists represented this work by copying the composition used by Murillo in this Good Shepherd.