Fig. 16. The Assumption. Titian. Academy, Venice

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THE MELON EATERS

Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1618-1682)

hen the Spanish artist Murillo was a young painter he was very poor and hardly knew where to get enough to eat. He would go to the market-place and set up his easel and rapidly paint the scenes around him. The people who came to the market to buy and sell saw these pictures and bought them for a mere pittance.

Often beggar boys, who were everywhere in the market snatching fruits and other eatables from the stalls, would pose for him as they hid in some corner to eat their stolen dainties. These beggar-boy pictures that Murillo sold for a song to keep his soul and body together began to attract attention until finally they were looked upon as the greatest pictures Murillo ever painted. People outside of Spain, Murillo's native country, bought them until to-day scarcely a beggar-boy picture of his is found in Spain.