Like Zurbarán and Velázquez, Murillo was trained in Seville, where he spent his whole career. This painting of the Madonna and Child formed part of the collection of the Marqués de Santiago, who owned a number of outstanding works by the artist. The popularity of Murillo’s paintings of the Madonna and Child derives from his ability to endow a timeworn theme with a quality of intimacy and sweetness. The infant’s attention has, in this picture, been momentarily diverted from nursing by the presence of the viewer.

The Virgin and Child was probably painted by Murillo around 1670–72. It is first recorded in the collection of Francisco Estéban Rodríguez del Ríos, 1st Marqués de Santiago, in Madrid in 1715 (Palomino). In the 1728 inventory of the Santiago collection the painting is mentioned as "Our Lady of the Milk with the Child" (Glendinning 1986). The Marqués de Santiago owned several paintings by Murillo, and the Virgin and Child remained in the family collection until 1808, when it was sold to George Augustus Wallis, who was acting on behalf of the dealer William Buchanan. According to Buchanan (1824) the painting was then displayed on the main altar of the chapel in the Santiago palace. Buchanan sold the painting in 1809 to Thomas Noel, 2nd Baron Berwick, for Attingham Park, and the canvas then passed through various English and Scottish aristocratic collections, before being sold to the MMA by the Earl of Crawford and Belcarres in 1943.

The composition is simple and effective. The Virgin sits in a room with the Child on her lap. He seems to have been distracted from nursing and turns towards the viewer. Murillo managed to combine the tradition of Spanish art with foreign influences, especially Venetian (Titian) and Flemish (Van Dyck).

The composition of the painting was probably known in Central America at an early date. Cristóbal de Villalpando’s figures of Charity for the paintings of The Church Militant and Triumphant in the cathedrals of Mexico City and Guadalajara derive from Murillo’s Santiago Virgin. As the Mexico City project was completed in 1685 it seems likely that a copy of Murillo’s painting had reached Mexico by then. A copy of the Virgin, inscribed with the date 1774, is currently in a private collection in Mexico City.

A preparatory drawing for the overall composition of the painting is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

[2011]

Francisco Estéban Rodríguez del Ríos, 1st Marqués de Santiago, Madrid (by at least 1715–1808; inventory 1728; sold to George Augustus Wallis for Buchanan); [William Buchanan, London, 1808–09; sold for £2,500 to Berwick]; Thomas Noel, 2nd Baron Berwick, Attingham Park, Shrewsbury, Salop, (1809–25; sale, Philips, London, June 7, 1825, no. 157, for £1,890 to Tennant); [Tennant, from 1825]; [Sir John Murray, in 1826; sold for £525 to Yates]; [Yates, from 1826]; [William Buchanan, London, by 1832; sold to Loyd]; Samuel Jones Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone, London (1832–83); his daughter, Harriet Sarah Loyd-Lindsay, Lady Wantage, Carleton Gardens, London (1883–d. 1920); her grand-nephew, David Alexander Edward Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford, 10th Earl of Balcarres, Fife, Scotland (1920–d. 1940); his son, David Alexander Robert Lindsay, 28th Earl of Crawford, 11th Earl of Balcarres, Fife (1940–43; sold to MMA through R. Langton Douglas)

London. British Institution. June 1844, no. 48 (lent by Samuel Jones Loyd).

London. British Institution. 1851, no. 97 (lent by Lord Overstone).

Manchester. Art Treasures Palace. "Art Treasures of the United Kingdom," May 5–October 17, 1857, no. 642 (lent by Lord Overstone).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1871, no. 193 (lent by Lord Overstone).

London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1888, no. 131 (lent by Lord Wantage).

London. New Gallery. "Exhibition of Spanish Art," 1895–96, no. 72 (lent by Lord Wantage).

Art Gallery of the Corporation of London. "Spanish Painters," April 30–August 28, 1901, no. 80 (lent by Lord Wantage).

London. Grafton Galleries. "Exhibition of Spanish Old Masters," October 1913–January 1914, no. 76 (lent by Lady Wantage).

Louisville. J. B. Speed Art Museum. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," December 1, 1948–January 23, 1949, no catalogue.

Madison. Memorial Union Gallery, University of Wisconsin. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," February 15–March 30, 1949, unnumbered cat.

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. "Old Masters from the Metropolitan," April 24–June 30, 1949, no catalogue.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 57).

Fort Worth, Tex. Kimbell Art Museum. "Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682): Paintings from American Collections," March 10–June 16, 2002, no. 23.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682): Paintings from American Collections," July 14–October 6, 2002, no. 23.

Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco. "El parnaso español pintoresco laureado." El museo pictórico y escala óptica. 3, Madrid, 1715, p. 421 [see Temple 1905, p. 107, no. 153], lists the painting with the works of Murillo, in the collection of the Marques de Santiago, Madrid.

Richard Cumberland. Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London, 1782, vol. 2, pp. 125–26, as a Madonna and Child by Murillo in the collection of the Marquis of Santiago; notes that "the Madonna appears to be a portrait and not a beautiful subject" and finds that "in this piece the art is much superior to the design"; claims to own an engraving after the picture.

Antonio Palomino. "El parnaso español pintoresco laureado." El museo pictórico y escala óptica. 3, 2nd ed. Madrid, 1796, p. 623, as in the collection of the Marques de Santiago.

W[illiam]. Buchanan. Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution. London, 1824, vol. 2, pp. 219–21, 228–29, 234, as purchased from the St. Jago [Santiago] collection, Madrid, for Buchanan by his agent, [George Augustus] Wallis, and sold by Buchanan to Lord Berwick for £2500 in 1809; notes that it was displayed on the principal altar in the chapel of the Santiago palace.

William Stirling[-Maxwell]. Annals of the Artists of Spain. London, 1848, vol. 3, p. 1422.

Handbook to the Gallery of British Paintings in the Art Treasures Exhibition: No. 1. London, 1857, pp. 57–58, no. 642, cites it in the collection of Lord Overstone.

[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain. London, 1857, pp. 141–42, cites the painting in Lord Overstone's collection.

W. Bürger [Théophile Thoré]. Trésors d'art en Angleterre. Brussels, 1860, pp. 127–28.

Francisco M.Tubino. Murillo, su época, su vida, sus cuadros. Seville, 1864, pp. 196–97.

William B. Scott. Murillo and the Spanish School of Painting. London, 1873, p. 103.

Ellen E. Minor. Murillo. London, 1882, p. 82, no. 642.

Charles B. Curtis. Velazquez and Murillo. London, 1883, pp. 154–55, no. 95.

Luis Alfonso. Murillo: El hombre, el artista, las obras. Barcelona, 1886, p. 191.

George Redford. Art Sales. London, 1888, vol. 2, p. 2002.

Carl Justi. "Murillo." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 2 (1891), p. 273.

Paul Lefort. Murillo et ses élèves. Paris, 1892, p. 75, no. 93.

Aureliano de Beruete. "Correspondance d'Angleterre: Exposition d'oeuvres de peintres espagnols au Guildhall de Londres." Gazette des beaux-arts 26 (1901), p. 258, as in the Wantage collection.

A[lfred]. G[eorge]. Temple et al. A Catalogue of Pictures Forming the Collection of Lord and Lady Wantage. London, 1905, pp. 107–8, no. 153.

August L. Mayer. Murillo: Des Meisters Gemälde. Stuttgart, 1913, pp. xviii, 65, 286, 292, ill., dates it about 1668–82.

August L. Mayer. Geschichte der spanischen Malerei. Leipzig, 1913, vol. 2, p. 97.

Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of Spanish Old Masters. Exh. cat., Grafton Galleries. London, 1914, pp. 79–81, no. 76, pl. 35, states that the painting was detained in Antwerp due to the English siege between 1808 and 1809.

August L. Mayer. Geschichte der spanischen Malerei. Leipzig, 1922, p. 340.

August L. Mayer in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 25, Leipzig, 1931, p. 286.

August L. Mayer. "Murillo und seine italienischen Barockvorbilder." Critica d'arte 3 (June 1938), p. 120, dates it about 1669–72 and claims it is derived from Titian's Madonna and Child in Munich (formerly in the Escorial).

Louise Burroughs. "A Painting of the Virgin and Child by Murillo." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1 (May 1943), pp. 261–65, ill. (overall and details), dates it about 1670–71.

Lorenzo Varela. Murillo. Buenos Aires, 1946, p. 87, pls. 41–42 (overall and detail).

Manuel Toussaint. Arte Colonial en México. Mexico City, 1948, p. 159, notes that he has seen in a Mexican private collection a superior replica of Murillo's Virgin and Child from the Santiago collection, London [the present work].

Emiliano M. Aguilera. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Barcelona, 1950, p. 19.

Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Guide to the Picture Galleries." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12, part 2 (January 1954), pp. 4, 30, ill.

Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. La pintura española fuera de España. Madrid, 1958, p. 247, no. 1914, dates it to about 1668–82.

Martin Soria in George Kubler and Martin Soria. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800. Baltimore, 1959, pp. 277, 311, pl. 148B, dates it to about 1670–75 and believes Murillo knew Titian's Madonna and Child [see Ref. Mayer 1938] only through a copy; notes that Cristóbal de Villalpando's "The Triumph of the Church" [sic, for "The Church Militant and Triumphant"] in Mexico Cathedral includes a Virgin and Child based on this composition.

Francisco de la Maza. "Pintura barroca mexicana (Cristóbal de Villalpando)." Archivo español de arte 36 (January–March 1963), p. 32, pl. 2, cites it as a source for the figure of Charity in Villalpando's "La Iglesia militante y triunfante" (see Ref. Soria 1959).

Jonathan Brown. "Painting in Seville from Pacheco to Murillo: A Study of Artistic Transition." PhD diss., Princeton University, 1964, pp. 251–52, fig. 42.

Francisco de la Maza. El pintor Cristóbal de Villalpando. Mexico City, 1964, pp. 64, 77, ill.

Louise S. Richards. "Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: A Drawing Study for a Virgin and Child." Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 15 (September 1968), pp. 235, 237, 239 n. 2, ill., publishes a drawing in Cleveland (fig. 1) as a preparatory study for our painting.

Jonathan Brown in Jonathan Brown and Robert Enggass. Italy and Spain, 1600–1750: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970, p. 201.

Diego Angulo Íñiguez. "Algunos dibujos de Murillo." Archivo español de arte 47 (April–June 1974), p. 105, mentions the painting in relation to the Cleveland drawing, which he erroneously cites as also in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Gridley McKim-Smith. Spanish Baroque Drawings in North American Collections. Exh. cat., University of Kansas Museum of Art. Lawrence, Kans., 1974, pp. 49–50, ill., dates it to about 1670.

Jonathan Brown. Murillo & His Drawings. Exh. cat., Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, 1976, pp. 11, 31, 165–66, ill., catalogues and illustrates the Cleveland drawing.

Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. L'opera completa di Murillo. Milan, 1978, pp. 105, 119, no. 217, ill., dates it about 1670.

Marcus B. Burke in Spain and New Spain: Mexican Colonial Arts in their European Context. Exh. cat., Art Museum of South Texas. Corpus Christi, Tex., 1979, p. 28.

Denys Sutton. "Robert Langton Douglas, Part IV, XX: New York." Apollo 110 (July 1979), p. 38, ill.

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 331–32, fig. 597.

Mark M. Johnson. Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Exh. cat.Cleveland, 1980, pp. 46–48, ill.

Eric Young. Bartolomé Murillo: Werkverzeichnis. Frankfurt am Main, 1980, p. 70, no. 222, ill., dates it to about 1670.

Diego Angulo Íñiguez. Murillo. Madrid, 1981, vol. 1, p. 432; vol. 2, pp. 159–60, no. 164, vol. 3, pl. 382, dates the painting about 1670–80; lists copies in Florence, Mexico, and Valencia, and observes that since Murillo has inverted Titian's composition [see Ref. Mayer 1936] he may only have known it through an engraving.

Manuela Mena Marqués Enrique Valdivieso in Bartolomé Estéban Murillo [1617-1682]. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 1982, p. 292.

Juan Miguel Serrera. "Murillo y la pintura italiana de los siglos XVI y XVII: Nuevas relaciones y concomitancias." Goya (July–December 1982), p. 127.

Edward J. Sullivan, Nina A. Mallory. Painting in Spain 1650–1700 from North American Collections. Exh. cat., Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, 1982, p. 168, ill. (not in exhibition).

Harold E. Wethey. "Spanish Painting of the Late Baroque." Art Journal 42 (Winter 1982), p. 334.

Nina Ayala Mallory. Bartolomé Estebán Murillo. Madrid, 1983, pp. 33, 63, fig. 58, doubts that Murillo relied on a print rather than on Titian's original, as the treatment here is "completely Venetian," reflecting Titian's late style.

Claudie Ressort in Murillo dans les musées français. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1983, p. 24, no. 36, dates it about 1660–65, following Murillo's stay in Madrid, and sees in it the influence of Titian and Van Dyck.

Nigel Glendinning. "A Footnote to Goya's "Portrait of the Marquesa de Santiago"." J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 14 (1986), p. 149, identifies it as the "Our Lady of the Milk with the Child" in the 1728 posthumous inventory of Don Francisco Estéban Rodríguez de los Ríos, the first holder of the Santiago title, although the dimensions are given as 167 x 84 cm.

Antonio Palomino. Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors. Cambridge, 1987, pp. 282, 285 n. 7.

María de los Santos García Felguera. La fortuna de Murillo (1682–1900). Seville, 1989, p. 60.

Enrique Valdivieso. Murillo: Sombras de la tierra, luces del cielo. Madrid, 1990, pp. 193–94.

Jonathan Brown. The Golden Age of Painting in Spain. New Haven, 1991, pp. 282–83, ill., dates it about 1675–80.

Marcus B. Burke. Pintura y escultura en Nueva España: El barroco. Mexico, 1992, pp. 110–11, 158, ill. (color).

Edward J. Sullivan in Converging Cultures: Art and Identity in Spanish America. Exh. cat., Brooklyn Museum. New York, 1996, pp. 39–40, ill.

Juana Gutiérrez Haces et al. Cristóbal de Villalpando, ca. 1649–1714. Mexico City, 1997, pp. 204, 272, notes that Villalpando includes a figure of charity based on this composition in his paintings of "The Church Militant and Triumphant" in the cathedrals of Mexico City and Guadalajara; states that the work in Mexico City was completed in 1685.

Jonathan Brown. Painting in Spain, 1500–1700. New Haven, 1998, p. 231, ill.

Marcus B. Burke. "Fort Worth and Los Angeles: Murillo in America." Burlington Magazine 144 (July 2002), p. 458, ill. (color).

Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt in Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682): Paintings from North American Collections. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. New York, 2002, pp. 30–31, 44, 162–64, no. 23, ill. (color, overall and detail).

Elizabeth A. Pergam. "From Manchester to Manhattan: The Transatlantic Art Trade After 1857." Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 87, no. 2 (2005), pp. 82, 86, 90.

Sofía Sanabrais. "The Influence of Murillo in New Spain." Burlington Magazine 147 (May 2005), p. 327, fig. 28, asserts that as "no reproductive print was made of the painting [MMA 43.13] before Villalpando's 'Church militant' was completed, it seems likely that the artist had access to a contemporary copy either by Murillo or by one of his followers"; states that a Murillo follower, Juan Simón Gutiérrez, is recorded in a document of 1678 as exporting a large shipment of devotional paintings to New Spain; suggests that he copied this Virgin and Child and exported the replica to Mexico City; wonders if the copy mentioned by Toussaint [Ref. 1948] as in a private collection in Mexico can be identified with one that appears in a photograph in the MMA archives.

Marcus Burke in The Arts in Latin America: 1492–1820. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2006, p. 84 n.31.