"Virgin of the Rosary"

Virgin of the Rosary has a delicacy and sweetness atypical of Caravaggio's work, and curator Jane Martineau has argued that Murillo was inspired by the work of Bartoloméo Cavarozzi, an Italian who worked in Madrid, and whose paintings were widely known in Spain. If Caravozzi and Murillo painted similar Virgins, that may also have been due to their shared admiration of Raphael's Virgins, which Murillo would have known from drawings and engravings after the Renaissance master circulated throughout the local studios and workshops. Initially, as in much of his early work, Murillo strived for a sculptural effect in his figures, and he particularly admired the monumentality of Raphael's Virgins. By 1650, however, Murillo introduced a new elegance into his style, and painted the Virgin as younger, more delicately featured, with feathery brushwork possibly borrowed from Anthony Van Dyck, whose paintings were known in Seville. Likewise, in the present work, the Christ Child is no longer a languid baby, but an active toddler, who plays with a rosary entwined in the Virgin's hand. The beads formally unite the Child and the Virgin and their cheek-to-cheek embrace imparts a sense of tenderness that is deeply empathetic. This shift in pose also changed the overall composition, making it necessarily more vertical, allowing Murillo space to paint luxurious draperies in sweeping brushstrokes of glowing, jewel-like color. 

In 1644, Murillo joined the Brotherhood of the Virgin of the Rosary, a lay fraternity dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Murillo possibly painted this Virgin of the Rosary for a private collector associated with the Brotherhood. It only entered the royal collections in the Escorial in 1788, before eventually passing to the Prado in 1827. However, the painting was always popular and well known, and it was copied by several accomplished painters. One copy in the Wallace Collection was apparently so good, it was long believed to be by Murilllo.