St. Thomas of Villanueva Dividing His Clothes Among Beggar Boys

The Augustinian friar Thomas of Villanueva (1488–1555) was venerated for his many acts of charity dating back to his childhood. This large painting was part of a monumental retablo, or altarpiece, illustrating scenes from the saint’s life that was commissioned by the Monastery of San Augustín in Seville in honor of Villanueva’s canonization in 1658. Three other paintings from the retablo survive, two depicting the saint giving alms (Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, and Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville), and one showing the healing of a lame man (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), but it is not known exactly how many paintings were included in the original setting.

A native of Seville, Murillo was court painter to King Charles II of Spain and founded the Fine Arts Academy of Seville. His late pictures, like this one, are painted in a meltingly soft, evocative style—called his “estilo vaporoso,” or vaporous style—and are characterized by a sweetness of expression and mood. This tender sentimentality was especially popular in the nineteenth century, when Murillo was at the height of his critical esteem in Spain. His influence on European and American artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was considerable.