Saint Joseph and the Sleeping Christ Child
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1618-1682)
1670/75
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, over black chalk, on ivory laid paper, laid down on beige wove card
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions
- Primary support: 16.4 × 13.6 cm (6 1/2 × 5 3/8 in.); Secondary support: 17.9 × 15.3 cm (7 1/16 × 6 1/16 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
A rare but poignant scene of fatherhood, this sheet depicts the rough and bearded Joseph looking helplessly down at the sleeping, recumbent form of the Christ child; his thoughts could be dwelling on how he will be unable to protect his son from the sacrifice he would have to make. Saint Joseph was especially popular in 17th-century Counter-Reformation Spain, as he was reputed to have helped heal Saint Teresa of Ávila’s paralysis. This tender picture is one of only about 70 known autograph drawings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, founder of a drawing academy in Seville and one of the most esteemed artists of the Spanish Baroque.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
