2-979-593 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Christ on the Banks of the Jordan" - painted by Murillo, from Louis Philippe's Collection, 1857. Engraving of a painting. 'Few subjects not of an active dramatic character are more finely suggestive to the religious painter than "Christ on the Banks of the Jordan." The active portion of his earthly career was just beginning. The locality was the bank of that river which separates, the barren mountainous Judea from the smiling and umbrageous lands of Gilead...There is no action in this picture...Christ is a noble figure in pose as well as in drapery: the countenance, unfurrowed, as in the Passion, is replete with divine benignity...This picture was purchased from a Canon of the Cathedral of Seville by the late Mr. Standish...[it was subsequently] purchased by Mr. Townend, for £660, at Messrs. Christie's'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.