The Holy Family

This work by Wincenty Sleńdziński is a careful copy of The Virgin of Seville by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), a Spanish Baroque painter. Murillo was one of Spain’s most famous painters, whose beautiful religious compositions, subtly combining realism and spirituality, and painted in a soft and skilful way, were highly valued. His religious pictures, and also copies and prints of them, became especially popular with Catholics, while some his compositions, such as St Francis of Assisi Embracing the Crucified Christ (ca 1668), The Vision of St Anthony (1670), and Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (1670 and 1678), were reproduced throughout Europe. They can often be seen on church altars i Lithuania too.