Murillo came into the world with the close of the year 1617, and was
baptized in a church destroyed during the French invasion nearly two
hundred years later; the record of his baptism is preserved to-day in
the Church of St. Paul. History is silent about his early years, but
the authorities make it clear that his parents were among the very
poorest of the city and that he was brought up in the old Jewish
quarter, always the abiding place of indigence and suffering. In all
probability he roamed the streets of the Triana and the Arrebola,
little better off than the beggar boys who were destined to provide so
much striking material for his brush. When his parents died of the
plague that visited Seville the lad and his sister were adopted by an
uncle who was a struggling doctor. Times were bad in spite of the
epidemic; probably there was more demand than payment for medical
services of the quality that Don Juan Lagares could offer: but his
little nephew's cleverness with brush and pencil was too obvious to
escape notice, and Don Juan del Castillo, one of the city's leading
painters, was induced by the doctor to accept the lad as a pupil
without payment of a fee.
In the studio of a moderately successful artist a pupil would be
required to do menial work--to grind colours, clean brushes, sweep
floors; he would pick up what he could of the master's methods when he
had nothing else to do. It was no good apprenticeship for a beginner
whose youthful talent required direction from a bigger man, but beggars
cannot be choosers, and doubtless uncle and nephew were grateful to
Castillo, who has few claims upon our memory save in his capacity as
master of Seville's great painter. He found a willing pupil whose work
was admitted to some of the poorer religious houses in the city when he
was only fifteen, and the relations between the two would seem to have
been pleasant, for Murillo worked in the studio for ten years or more,
and probably received some small regular payment in return for his
services as soon as he had demonstrated their value. Then Juan del
Castillo moved to Cadiz, and Murillo remained in Seville. Judging by
his actions in years to come, he remained because the city was very
dear to him; he would undoubtedly have been useful to his master, and
beyond doubt the closing of Castillo's workshop left him at the age of
twenty-three in dire financial straits. He had his sister to support,
and the means of doing so were of the smallest, for he was only known
to the poorer brethren of the Church who had few commissions to offer
and very little to pay for them. The best paid work was in strong
hands and, if no high dignitaries of the Church in Seville knew much
about the struggling painter, it must be confessed that he had not done
much to attract or to deserve attention. He was an artist in the
making just then, and the making was a slow and painful process.
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