Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 'A Peasant Boy leaning on a Sill', about 1675-80

A peasant boy leans on a chipped stone block or sill and looks towards something – or someone – that makes him smile. This painting once had a companion picture, A Girl Raising her Veil (now in a private collection), with which it remained until 1806. The two compositions were clearly conceived together: the boy, leaning forward on his elbows, reveals his bare right shoulder while the girl, turning away but glancing back towards him, lifts her veil coyly and exposes her left shoulder. Their exchange is flirtatious, as if imitating more adult behaviour.

This is the type of picture for which Murillo is best known. With poverty becoming an ever-growing problem in seventeenth-century Seville, where the artist spent his entire career, Murillo specialised in painting beggar boys and street children with extraordinary humanity. The boy’s expression and his relaxed pose show him to be in high spirits; apart from his ragged clothes there is nothing to suggest the harsh realities of poverty.

Although the boy here is very lifelike, this is not a portrait. It is a genre painting that provides a momentary glimpse of everyday life in Seville. The street children portrayed by Murillo were also the subject of popular picaresque novels; this genre, its name derived from the Spanish word for rogue or rascal (pícaro), focused on the rebellious adventures of a penniless character. The most well-known story was that of the anti-hero Lazarillo de Tormes, a young beggar who was always on the move, surviving on casual work or pickpocketing.

As well as looking at contemporary literary sources, Murillo may have turned to seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings for inspiration in painting his scenes of everyday life. Murillo never actually left Spain but he would have seen these paintings (or engravings after them) in the homes of his patrons in Seville, some of whom were merchants who originated from northern Europe. In particular Nicolás Omazur, a wealthy Flemish silk merchant who had settled in Seville in 1669 and became one of Murillo’s closest friends and patrons, probably encouraged and personally shared the artist’s interest in painting everyday life.

This painting was made by Murillo late in his career, in about 1675–80, and demonstrates the artist’s confidence in handling paint. Murillo suggests the form of the boy’s earlobes and hands with quick, lively brushstrokes. The sketch-like appearance of the shadows and background contrasts with the thicker layers of paint in the clothing, especially the white shirt draped around the boy’s shoulder.