The Good Shepherd

Murillo's The Good Shepherd shows the child Jesus seated in an open landscape, with a stray sheep resting beneath his left hand. The scene draws on one of Christianity's oldest images, the shepherd who tends his flock, and more specifically on the passage in the Gospel of John where Christ presents himself as the one who gives his life for his sheep. Madrazo also suggested that the sheep in the foreground might allude to the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew, though this is an interpretation rather than a documented fact.

The painting dates from around 1660, when Murillo was already a recognised painter in Seville. Its most striking feature is its light: it gently illuminates the boy and the sheep, which form a pyramidal grouping, while the rest of the flock dissolves almost entirely into hazy clouds. Unlike the drama favoured by many seventeenth-century artists, the picture opts for a serene and approachable sweetness, in line with the devotional sensibility of the Counter-Reformation. This simplicity largely explains its wide diffusion, since it was reproduced many times in devotional prints, engravings and lithographs.

The work also has a notable collecting history. According to the sources, Queen Elisabeth Farnese acquired it in 1744 and had it enlarged so that it could hang as a pendant to the Infant Saint John the Baptist, with which it still shares a display at the Prado, where it has been since 1819. A fleur-de-lis in the lower right corner is associated with that royal collection.

Murillo treated this childhood theme in several versions. The Prado picture is probably the earliest, showing a upright child who looks out at the viewer with a faintly melancholy air. Other versions, in London and Frankfurt, present a broader landscape or a looser handling, and the last belongs to the painter's final years. Preparatory drawings for the composition are known, and Ceán Bermúdez compared the work with an engraving by Stefano della Bella, a reminder that artists of the period often drew inspiration from prints by others.

Painter

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Date

1664

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

123 × 102 cm

Museum

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Movement

Baroque

Genre

religious art

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