Murillo & Justino de Neve. The Art of Friendship

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that includes six essays, by Gabriele Finaldi, Javier Portús, Peter Cherry, Teodoro Falcón, Benito Navarrete and Ignacio Cano. It also has entries on all the works on display (by Gabriele Finaldi, Elena Cenalmor and Xavier Bray) and a documentary appendix on the life, family and activities of Justino de Neve. Murillo and Justino de Neve. The Art of Friendship brings together a group of late works by Murillo that were commissioned by Justino de Neve, a canon of Seville cathedral, an important patron of art and a personal friend of Murillo's. As such, the exhibition represents a significant contribution to research on the artist's life and work. The exhibition is organised into various different sections. It opens with Murillo's self-portrait, which is shown alongside the artist's portrait of his friend and patron Justino de Neve (both National Gallery, London). The next section focuses on works painted for the church of Santa María la Blanca in Seville (Prado, Louvre and Faringdon Trust, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire), followed by works painted for Seville cathedral and the Hospital de los Venerables (the large-scale Baptism of Christ for the chapel of Saint Anthony and The Virgin and Child distributing Bread to the Priests, now in the Budapest Museum). The next section looks at works executed for Justino de Neve's personal collection, including three small devotional works painted on Mexican obsidian, shown together for the first time since the seventeenth century, and a miniature on copper that has recently been attributed to Murillo. In total, five works have been restored by the Prado for this exhibition, three from its own collection, one from Seville cathedral and another from the Faringdon Trust.