The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

The Heavenly and Earthly Trinities by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Two trinities, one child

The composition is a diagram, and a very beautiful one. Read it vertically and the Child stands under the Dove of the Holy Spirit, who is under God the Father: the Trinity. Read it horizontally and he stands between Mary and Joseph, holding a hand of each: the Holy Family, which Spanish devotion of the period called the earthly trinity. The boy is the point where the two lines cross — the one figure who belongs to both.

It is a piece of theology that would take a paragraph to explain, and Murillo makes it legible at a glance to anyone who has seen a family walking together.

The Pedroso Murillo

The picture was painted for the Pedroso family of Cádiz, in the last years of Murillo’s life, and is still sometimes called by their name. It is among the largest and most ambitious of his late works — nearly three metres tall — and one of the best-known Murillos outside Spain since it entered the National Gallery in London in 1837.

About this print

Made from the National Gallery’s own image of the painting, 5,135 pixels tall.

Sources: The National Gallery, London, NG13 · Wikimedia Commons