Murillo works now on show at Dulwich Picture Gallery

A special exhibition of works by 17th Century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo is now on show at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery, fresh from Madrid’s Museo del Prado.

The exhibition explores the fruitful friendship between Murillo and Justino de Neve, the canon of Seville Cathedral.

Now in London, the selection of 17 paintings – five of which were restored especially for the exhibition – includes religious and devotional works as well as allegories and portraits and is the first major showing of Murillo’s works since 1982.

Produced at the height of the artist’s career, the paintings were mainly commissioned for Seville’s many churches and one work, the Penitent St Peter, was thought lost until it was discovered in a private collection in early 2012.

The exhibition will be joined by a special display of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s own collection of Murillo’s which have undergone some enlightening conservation including the discovery of a newly confirmed Murillo.

The exhibition is currently on show in Dulwich at Britain’s first purpose-built public art gallery and runs until May 19. Entry costs £11 for adults, £10 for seniors and £5 concessions. Children enter free.

A second, free exhibition – Murillo at the Wallace Collection: Painting of the Spanish Golden Age – will run simultaneously at the Wallace Collection in London’s Manchester Square.

It will include a collection of Murillo works put together by the 4th Marquess of Hertford as well as pieces by his workshop and associates such as Francisco Meneses Osorio and Juan Simon Gutierrez.