Bartolomé Esteban Murillo and studio, 'The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin', 17th century

Surrounded by angels, a graceful and ethereal Virgin crosses her hands over her breast and gazes heavenwards. She wears a white garment and a swirling blue cloak.

The scene is bathed in a mellow light, and the Virgin is surrounded by a golden haze of clouds into which angels seem to dissolve. The tip of a crescent moon is visible beneath her feet, a symbol associated with the Woman of the Apocalypse and with the Immaculate Conception (the belief that the Virgin was conceived without sin). The Woman of the Apocalypse is described in the Book of Revelation: ‘clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’ (Revelation 12: 1–4 and 14). Here we don't see the crown of stars, though it is included in Velázquez’s The Immaculate Conception of a few years earlier, commissioned for a Carmelite convent in Seville.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (the belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived with sin) was popular in seventeenth-century Spain, especially in Seville where Murillo spent his entire career. Representatives of the Catholic Church in Spain, with the support of the Spanish monarchy, fought to make it into a dogma of faith. While a papal bill of 1661 affirmed it, the doctrine was only officially adopted by the Church in 1854. Murillo played an important role in promoting the idea, painting numerous versions of the subject for both ecclesiastical institutions and private collectors during the 1660s and 1670s. The best of these was made for his patron Don Justino de Neve, whom Murillo also painted, which was subsequently acquired by the Hospital of the Venerables Sacerdotes (and is now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid).

Once thought to be by an imitator of Murillo, cleaning work carried out in 1980 revealed a picture of higher quality and the possible participation of the master himself. The lower angels, with expressive hands, twisted bodies and energetic movement, are among the best parts; they are more likely to be by Murillo. As far as we know the composition is original, so this is not a studio replica of a known painting by the artist.

Murillo’s contemporary, Juan de Valdés Leal, who had settled in Seville by 1656, painted his own version of the subject, Immaculate Conception with Two Donors, during the early 1660s.