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The Immaculate Conception
About the Artwork
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception maintains that the Virgin Mary was conceived free from sin, therefore ready to be the pure vessel for Christ’s birth. The Immaculate Conception enjoyed intense devotion in Spain during the 1600s, although it was only accepted as official doctrine in 1854. The abstract subject required artists to develop appropriate imagery. The crescent moon, for example, comes from the New Testament vision of Saint John the Evangelist (Revelation 12:1) of “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet.”
Provenance
Sir Thomas Sebright, Beechwood near Boxmoor, Hertfordshire; [F. Kleinberger &: Co., New York]. Purchase, Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Bequest, 1959.
Exhibition history
El Greco to Goya, A Loan Exhibition of Spanish Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indianapolis, IN (organizer) (February 10-March 24, 1963); Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (February 10-March 24, 1963). Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: Paintings from American Collections. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (organizer) (March 10-June 16, 2002); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (July 14-October 6, 2002). Dalí and the Spanish Baroque. Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (organizer) (February 2-June 24, 2007).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682)
- Date
- c. 1680
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 246.3 x 152.7 x 8 cm (96 15/16 x 60 1/8 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 220.5 x 127.5 cm (86 13/16 x 50 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Accession no.
- 1959.189
More by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009515
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