MURILLO, Bartolomé Esteban
(b. 1617, Sevilla, d. 1682, Sevilla)

Infant Christ Offering a Drink of Water to St John

1675-80
Oil on canvas, 104 x 124 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Murillo was one of the great devotional artists of all time, especially in his later years when he produced ingratiating compositions that inspire gentle, pious feelings. This painting is a superb example the sort of imagery that established Murillo's reputation in the seventeenth century and demolished it in the twentieth.