Another picture that formed part of the loot taken by Napoleon’s
general and was taken in 1855 from his son, the Duke of Dalmatia, in
liquidation of a debt of £6000, is _The Birth of the Virgin_ (No.
1710). The National Gallery in London owns a small preliminary study
for this painting, which was executed in 1655 for Seville Cathedral.
The centre is occupied by a beautifully disposed group of four women
and four winged heavenly visitors attending to the Infant’s bath; in
the background on the left St. Anne, raised in her bed, is receiving
visitors, and on the right are seen two attendants airing linen at
a fireplace. The strange assemblage, in which the earthly and the
heavenly are without incongruity brought into such close contact that
one of the boy-angels is actually occupied with a dog, is completed
by another four angels floating in the air above the Infant. In
composition, distribution of light and shade, and in harmonious
blending of mellow colour this picture ranks among Murillo’s highest
achievements. According to Cean Bermudez, the roundness, beauty of
shape, and rosy complexion of the waiting-woman’s arm in the foreground
“excited the jealous envy of the ladies of Seville.” It is interesting
to note that before its acquisition by the Louvre the _Birth of the
Virgin_ was brought to England in 1823, when the owners vainly tried to
find a purchaser.
“THE ANGELS’ KITCHEN”
Yet another deservedly famous work by Murillo, removed from a
Franciscan convent at Seville by the insatiable greed of Marshal Soult,
is the now extensively restored large picture known as _The Miracle of
San Diego_, or _The Angels’ Kitchen_ (No. 1716). The composition is
divided by two large figures of angels into two halves. On the left two
knights of Calatrava are shown in by a Franciscan brother and behold
St. Diego in prayer miraculously raised into the air and surrounded
by a flood of light. On the right the angels are occupied with the
preparation of the repast for which the Saint has sent his prayer to
the Virgin. A Franciscan is watching the scene from the distance with
a gesture of amazement. Here again the real and the supernatural are
blended with unaffected naïveté, the unity of the contending elements
being established by the masterly rendering of light and atmosphere.
An account of the miracle is given on a cartouche in the foreground;
whilst a piece of paper on the left holds the signature