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Born in Seville, which city he practically never abandoned in his lifetime and in which he died. Orphaned at the age of nine, he began an early apprenticeship in the studio of the modest painter Juan del Castillo, where he studied the works of Ribera and Zurbarán, at that moment at the height of their prestige. His first works, such as the The Holy Family with a Little Bird in the Prado Museum, show a clear influence of Naturalism with a Tenebrist tendency, but with less dramatic intensity and greater importance of light. In 1658 he travelled to Madrid, which enabled him to see the Royal collections and what other famous painters were doing within the tendency of decorative Baroque. His style evolved, incorporating Italian and Flemish elements, towards a less Naturalist painting, more luminous and with a freer execution, such as The Birth of the Virgin, painted for the cathedral of Seville. In 1660 the Academy of Seville was founded, of which Murillo was the president, together with Herrera the Younger, newly arrived from Italy. The decade 1660 - 70 is the most prolific of his career, painting essential works -such as the series of Saint Mary the White- which show his evolution in his maturity towards increasingly light, airy and vaporous forms. Famous for his Immaculate Conceptions and for the pictures of little rascals, he also painted portraits of a sober and elegant precision.
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