Renowned for his paintings of religious themes, Murillo made this preparatory drawing for one of his many versions of the Immaculate Conception. The loose, sketchy handling of this sheet is typical of the artist's later style. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the belief that the Virgin was born free of original sin, was especially popular in seventeenth-century Spain. Here this abstract ideal is embodied by the figure of the Virgin standing on a crescent moon. The number at upper right suggests that the sheet was preserved in an album with at least 116 drawings by the artist. --Exhibition Label, from "Visions and Nightmares: Four Centuries of Spanish Drawings"
Inscribed in pen and brown ink at lower left, "Murille f."; numbered at upper right, "116".
Holford, Robert Stayner, 1808-1892, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : drawings by the old masters formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, I, 111.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 27, p. 60-61.