About this time, Murillo was employed by the Marquis of Villamanrique, to paint a series of pictures from the life of David, in which the backgrounds were to be painted by Ignacio Iriarte, an eminent landscape painter of Seville. Murillo rightly proposed that the landscape parts should be first painted, and that he should afterwards put in the figures; but Iriarte contended that the historical part ought to be first finished, to which he would adapt the backgrounds. To put an end to the dispute, Murillo undertook to execute the whole, and changing the History of David to that of Jacob, he produced the famous series of five pictures, now in the possession of the Marquis de Santiago at Madrid, in which the beauty of the landscapes contends with that of the figures, and which remain a monument of his powers in these different departments of the art.
MURILLO'S DEATH.
The last work which Murillo painted was a picture
of St. Catherine, in the convent of the Capuchins
at Seville, his death being hastened by a fall
from the scaffold. He died at Seville in 1685, universally
deplored—for he was greatly beloved, not
merely for his extraordinary talents, but for the
generous qualities of his heart. Such was his noble
and charitable disposition, that he is said to have
