Murillo : The Self-Portraits

'overflowing with new discoveries and thoughts' - Apollo Magazine

A book exploring the self-portraits of Murillo

This beautiful publication accompanies an exhibition at London's National Gallery that brings together the only two known self-portraits by Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682), one of the finest painters of the Spanish Golden Age for the first time since 1709.

Painted almost twenty years apart, these two remarkable paintings are often overshadowed by Murillo's more famous religious paintings and genre scenes. This book investigates the two self-portraits side by side, highlighting similarities and differences.

While the earlier portrait reflects Murillo's admiration of antiquity and imitation of classical models, the later one shows a confident, mature artist who was at that time the leading painter in Seville. In addition, the book discusses recent technical analysis, offering a better understanding of how these self-portraits were painted and provides a rare opportunity to compare how one of the most celebrated and influential European painters chose to represent himself at different stages of his exceptional career.

Details

• Authors: Xavier F. Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at The Frick Collection and Letizia Treves, curator of later Italian, Spanish, and French 17th-century paintings at the National Gallery, London.
• Hardcover: 144 pages | 65 colour illustrations
• Date published: November 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0300225686
• Product Dimensions: 31.3 x 25.3 cm