“The Flower Girl”, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1665-1670), Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
The Sevillian artist, Murillo, often painted street urchins and children. This painting of a girl selling flowers is often seen as typical of his such works. Murillo shows a dark-haired girl dressed in exotic clothes with a turban and a brown shawl with silver embroidery, which may have come from South America. The girl offers pink and white roses to the viewer. In fact, the full title of this work is “The Flower Girl – Spring”. It was painted as one of a set of seasonal allegories that Murillo painted for Don Justino de Neve, Canon of Seville Cathedral. The companion piece shows a young man holding a basket of fruit and vegetables, representing summer. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland. However, there is another theory about this painting which I like. One of the things that shines through the works of Murillo is the importance of his family, his faith and the practice of his faith. Murillo had a strong link with the Dominican Order. For almost 40 years Murillo was an active member of the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary. Around the time this painting was made, his daughter, Francisca, became a Dominican nun. She took the name Sister Francisca Maria de Santa Rosa, after the Dominican Saint Rose of Lima whose feast day falls on Saturday. St Rose of Lima had been beatified in 1667 and canonised soon afterwards in 1671 and this may be why Murillo’s daughter took, or was given, this name in religious life. St Rose of Lima would become very popular because she was the first canonised saint from South American and Murillo painted her a number of times. One theory is that this is a portrait of his daughter and that the flowers symbolise her name in religious life. It may be significant that her shawl is similar to shawls worn in the Highlands of Peru, which had been imported to Seville at that time. So, given a commission to paint a young girl as an allegory of Spring, did Murillo actually paint his daughter, with these possible allusions to St Rose of Lima, whose name she took in religious life? We don’t know, but the painting certainly suggests that Murillo delighted in this girl’s beauty and happiness.
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