Murillo was a most gentle and encouraging teacher. His colored slave, Sebastian Gomez, who had listened to the teaching which he gave to others, finished the head of the Virgin which his master had left on the easel. Murillo exclaimed on seeing it, "I am indeed fortunate, Sebastian; for I have created not only pictures, but a painter!" Many of the works of Gomez, whom Murillo made free, are still preserved and prized in Seville.
During the next ten years, Murillo did much work for the cathedral clergy; eight oval, half-length pictures of saints, Justa, Rufina, Hermengild, Sidon, Leander, Archbishops Laureano and Pius, and King Ferdinand; the "Repose in Egypt;" the infants Christ and John for the Antigua Chapel, and other works.
Saints Justa and Rufina were daughters of a potter, whom they assisted. Some women who worshipped Venus came to the shop to buy vessels for idolatrous sacrifice. The sisters declared that they had nothing to sell for such purposes, as all things should be used in the service of God. The Pagan women were so incensed that they broke all the earthenware in the place. The sisters then broke the image of Venus, and flung it into a kennel. For this act the populace seized them, and took them before the Prefect. Justa expired on the rack, and Rufina was strangled. These two saints have always guarded the beautiful tower Giralda. They are said to have preserved it from destruction in 1504, in a terrific thunder-storm. When Espartero bombarded Seville in 1843, the people believed that Giralda was encompassed by angels led by these sisters, who turned aside the bombs.
Murillo was now fifty-two years old, in the prime of life, famous and honored. He was named by his admiring contemporaries "a better Titian," and it was asserted that even Apelles would have been proud to be called "the Grecian Murillo." He lived in a large and handsome house, still carefully preserved, near the Church of Santa Cruz, not far from the Moorish wall of the city. "The courtyard contains a marble fountain, amidst flowering shrubs, and is surrounded on three sides by an arcade upheld by marble pillars. At the rear is a pretty garden, shaded by cypress and citron trees, and terminated by a wall whereon are the remains of ancient frescos which have been attributed to the master himself. The studio is on the upper floor, and overlooks the Moorish battlements, commanding a beautiful view to the eastward, over orange-groves and rich corn-lands, out to the gray highlands about Alcalá."
Murillo's only sister, Teresa, had married a noble of Burgos, a knight of Santiago, judge of the royal colonial court, a man of great cultivation, and later chief secretary of state at Madrid. The artist was also urged by King Charles II. to enter the royal service at Madrid, especially since a picture of the Immaculate Conception, exhibited during a festival of Corpus Christi, had awakened the greatest enthusiasm among the people. But he loved Seville, and would not leave it. And the Sevillians equally loved the man so generous that he gave all he earned to the poor; so diligent at his work that he had no time for evil speaking; with so much tact and sweetness and vital piety that he left no shadow upon his name.
In 1670, Murillo began his great works for La Caridad, or the Hospital of St. George. The Brotherhood of Holy Charity built a church about 1450, but it had fallen into ruin. In 1661, Don Miguel Manura Vicentelo de Leca determined to restore and beautify the church and its adjacent buildings, and secured over half a million ducats for this purpose. His history was a strange one.
Frances Elliot says of this dissolute man, "Returning at midnight from a revel given by some gallants, in the now ancient quarter of the Macarena, Don Miguel falls in with a funeral procession with torches and banners. Some grandee of high degree, doubtless, there are so many muffled figures, mutes carrying silver horns, the insignia of knighthood borne upon shields, a saddled horse led by a shadowy page, and the dim forms of priests and monks chanting death dirges.
"Don Miguel can recall no death at court or among the nobles, and this is plainly a corpse of quality. Nor can he explain the midnight burial, a thing unknown except in warfare or in time of plague; so, advancing from the dark gateway where he had stood to let the procession pass, he addresses himself to one of the muffled figures, and asks, 'Whose body are they carrying to the Osario at this time of night?'
"'Don Miguel de Mañara,' is the answer; 'a great noble. Will you follow us and pray for his sinful soul?'