t the end of two years Velasquez advised
Murillo to go to Rome, and offered to assist him. But Murillo decided
first to return to Seville, and perhaps had come to the resolution not to
go to Italy; but this may be doubted. He knew the progress he had made; he
was reasonably certain that, if not the superior, he was the equal of any
of the artists he had left behind in Seville. He was sure of the wealth,
and taste, and love for art in his native city. His only sister was living
there. The rich and noble lady he afterward married resided near there.
And so we can hardly wonder that the artist gave up a cherished journey to
Italy, and returned to the scene of his early struggles with poverty.

The first works which Murillo painted after his return were for the
Franciscan Convent. They brought him little money but much fame. They were
eleven in number, but even the names of some are lost. One represents St.
Francis resting on his iron bed, listening in ecstacy to the notes of a
violin which an angel is playing to him; another portrays St. Diego of
Alcala, asking a blessing on a kettle of broth he is about to give to a
group of beggars clustered before him; another represents the death of St.
Clara of Assisi, in the rapturous trance in which her soul passed away,
surrounded by pale nuns and emaciated monks looking upward to a
contrasting group of Christ and the Madonna, with a train of celestial
virgins bearing her shining robe of immortality. The companion picture is
a Franciscan monk who passes into a celestial ecstacy while cooking in the
convent kitchen, and who is kneeling in the air, while angels perform his
culinary tasks. These pictures brought Murillo into speedy notice. Artists
and nobles flocked to see them. Orders for portraits and altar-pieces
followed in rapid succession, and he was full of work. Notwithstanding the
fact that he was acknowledged to be at the head of his profession in
Seville, his style at this time was cold and hard. It is called _frio_
(cold), to distinguish it from his later styles. The Franciscan Convent
pictures were carried off by Marshal Soult, and fortunately; for the
convent was burned in 1810. His second style, called _calido_, or warm,
dated from about the time of his marriage, in 1648, to a lady of
distinguished family, named Dona Beatriz de Cabrera y Sotomayor. She was
possessed of considerable property, and had lived in the village of Pilas,
a few leagues southwest of Seville. Her po