ATTRIBUTED TO BARTOLOMÉ ESTEBAN MURILLO | THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE

Private Collection, United Kingdom

Drawn with great freedom and vigour, this intriguing and accomplished black chalk compositional study, depicting The Presentation in the Temple, bears a fascinating brown ink signature, giving the name of one of the most influential figures of the Spanish Baroque, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.

Though the composition does not relate directly to a surviving painting by the artist, it has been plausibly suggested that the subject was intended to be part of a series of paintings relating to the Life of the Virgin or Christ. The present work is unusually large within Murillo’s surviving drawn oeuvre, but the intrinsic quality of the drawing, in which the artist has successfully achieved a sense of space, perspective and movement, makes a compelling case for his authorship, as do some of its stylistic quirks, such as the somewhat abstracted manner in which he depicts faces and eyes. The aforementioned brown ink signature is also consistent with others found on autograph drawings by the artist, such as his Saint Joseph and the Christ Child walking¹ and Virgin of the Immaculate Conception² and while there is still some debate as to whether it is the artist’s signature or an inscription made in his workshop, the proximity to Murillo is without doubt.

^1. J. Brown, Murillo, Virtuoso Draughtsman, New Haven and London 2012, no. 56

^2. Ibid., no. A14