The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial

The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial is a circa 1660–1665 oil religious painting by the Spanish Baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

Murillo's many artistic depictions of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary were enormously influential on later art.

[3] This was the belief held by Spain and the Franciscans; by contrast, the Dominican order argued that she had been conceived in sin but purified while unborn in her mother's womb.

[1] It depicts Mary as a young woman in a white dress and blue cloak, hands clasped in prayer and eyes upraised, ascending on a crescent moon borne by cherubs.

Because no contract for a commission for the piece has been located, the exact date is undetermined, but the range is presumed because of the style of the piece compared to his other works of the period and because of a drawing by Murillo from 1664 of the Immaculate Conception which, though it features Mary in different pose, uses the same two cherubs from the right of this work.

Murillo's formulation of the Immaculate Conception theme became a major influence on many subsequent artists.