Best in show

“Murillo was commissioned by his patron and friend Don Justino de Neve – canon of Seville Cathedral – to produce this work for the building’s baptistry chapel where it was hung high on a wall above an altarpiece the artist had previously painted.

I think the fact that it was placed so high up meant that Napoleon’s troops could not get their hands on it when they took over Seville in 1810 and began appropriating the painter’s pictures.

The French may have failed but we have been fortunate enough to be able to remove it from its lofty location for the very first time to feature – alongside Dulwich’s own collection of Murillo pictures – in this exhibition about the relationship between painter and patron.

The archbishop and cathedral authorities were happy for us to take it down as it was going to be cleaned and restored for free, but it was, in fact, in very good condition, albeit very dirty.

Its position meant, of course, that it had been also out of the reach of 19th-century restorers whose scrubbing often led to damage and the loss of detail; so, for example, the red glaze of the cloth that St John the Baptist wears was wonderfully bright and the water in which Christ’s foot rests was beautifully transparent.

Justino had private money and could afford to leave his mark by hiring Murillo to refurbish the large Gothic chapel, which contained the baptismal font.

This was the first time that an individual had taken an interest in the work of Murillo, whom Justino recognised not only as a great painter, but someone who could capture the essence of quite complicated religious doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception, the Eucharist and the transubstantiation.

I think these images were the 17th-century equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation designed to illustrate the flow of theological ideas from the priest in the pulpit.

As a curator, I believe a visitor should enter an exhibition and completely forget it may be raining outside. We wanted to recreate Murillo’s world, so it was important to understand fully the atmosphere, architecture and light of the places where the work was originally located.

Of course our exhibition space is relatively small and narrow and some of the work would have been lost in such a gallery setting. So I was delighted that we managed to persuade the trustees and director to allow us to take down half our collection in order to use Sir John Soane’s famous enfilade as a church-like space.

Many people see Murillo’s work as saccharine with lots of sweet angels frolicking around, but when you see the pictures at the right height and from the correct distance, you’ll discover they have been greatly misunderstood.”

Murillo & Justino de Neve: The Art of Friendship runs until 19 May.

Xavier Bray is the chief curator at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London