BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO.

This preëminent Spanish painter was born at Pilas, near Seville, in 1613. There is a great deal of contradiction among writers as to his early history, but it has been proved that he never left his own country. He first studied under Don Juan del Castillo, an eminent historical painter at Seville, on leaving whom, he went to Cadiz. It was the custom of the young artists at that time to expose their works for sale at the annual fairs, and many of the earliest productions of Murillo were exported to South America, which gave rise to the tradition, that he had proceeded thither in person.