The Patrician's Dream
Historical Context
Painted around 1665, The Patrician's Dream in the Museo del Prado depicts one half of the founding legend of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. According to tradition, the Roman patrician John and his wife dreamed that the Virgin Mary instructed them to build a church where snow would fall in August on the Esquiline Hill. Murillo painted this and its companion piece for the Church of Santa María la Blanca in Seville, which was being renovated to celebrate the Immaculate Conception. The nocturnal setting and the luminous apparition of the Virgin demonstrate Murillo's mastery of contrasting earthly sleep with celestial vision.
Technical Analysis
The sleeping patrician and his wife are visited by the luminous apparition of the Virgin, rendered in Murillo's soft, atmospheric manner with the contrast between the warm domestic interior and the supernatural vision.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the division of the composition into two registers: the sleeping patrician and his wife at the bottom, the luminous Virgin apparition above — Murillo makes the boundary between dream and waking visible.
- ◆Look at how the Virgin appears in the upper zone surrounded by soft, dissolving light quite different from the naturalistic domestic setting below.
- ◆Find the contrast between the sleeping couple's warm, earthly tones and the cooler, more ethereal palette of the celestial vision.
- ◆Observe that the companion piece to this work — depicting the patrician recounting his dream to the Pope — was painted for the same church of Santa María la Blanca in Seville.
