the accidental fall of the scaffolding, he received so severe an injury,
that he was forced to leave his work incomplete, and to return to
Seville, where he died within a few weeks, aged sixty-four years. He had
two sons, and an only daughter, who was a nun, having taken the veil
eight years before her father's death.

Murillo appears to have been in character a gentle, enthusiastic man,
not without a touch of fun and frolic. He would remain for hours in the
sacristy of the cathedral of Seville before 'the solemn awful picture of
the 'Deposition from the Cross,' by Pedro de Campana. When Murillo was
asked by the sacristan why he stood thus gazing there, the painter
answered, 'I am waiting till these holy men have finished their work.'
By his own desire, Murillo was buried before this picture. Before
another 'too truthful picture of Las dos Cadaveres' in the small church
of the hospital of the Caridad, Murillo used to hold his nose. One of
Murillo's pictures has the odd name of 'La Virgen Sarvilleta,' or the
Virgin of the Napkin. Murillo was working at the Convento de la Merced,
which is almost filled with his works, when the cook of the convent
begged a memorial of him, offering as the canvas a napkin, on which
Murillo at once painted a 'brilliant glowing Madonna,' with a child,
'which seems quite to bound forward out of the picture.'[29]

Murillo's portrait by himself represents him in a dark doublet having
wide sleeves and a square collar closed in front. His thumb is in his
pallet, and the other hand, with fingers taper and delicate as those of
a hand by Van Dyck, holds one of his brushes. The smooth face, with
regular features, is pale and thoughtful, and with the womanliness of
the aspect increased from the dark hair, which is divided slightly to
one side, being allowed to fall down in long wavy curls on the
shoulders.

In spite of the naturalistic studies of his early youth, and even of the
naturalistic treatment which he gave to his first religious work,
Murillo was possessed of greater and higher imagination than Velasquez
could claim, and the longer Murillo lived and worked the more refined
and exalted his ideas became. Unlike Velasquez, Murillo was a great
religious painter, and during the last years of his life he painted
sacred subjects almost exclusively. But, like Velasquez, Murillo was
eminently a Spanish painter--his virgins are dark-eyed,
olive-complexioned maidens, and even his Holy Child is a Span