Bartolomé Esteban Murillo Auction Prices and Value Guide

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo auction prices are tracked in Appraisily's artist market index, with source-directory coverage of 850 records. Use this page to review sold-lot activity, market context, and valuation factors before requesting a formal appraisal.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo auction prices: quick answer

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo auction prices depend on medium, size, date, condition, provenance, edition details, attribution confidence, and recent comparable auction sales.

Artist
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Source records
850
Market update
2026-02-06

Artist context

About Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter who spent his entire career in Seville, becoming one of the most celebrated European artists of the seventeenth century. He is best known for luminous religious compositions, especially his depictions of the Immaculate Conception, the Madonna and Child, and scenes from the lives of saints. Murillo also produced an influential body of genre paintings portraying the everyday life of Seville's streets: flower sellers, beggar children, and young street urchins rendered with warmth and naturalism that was unusual for the period. His soft, atmospheric style—characterized by diffused light and tender sentiment—made him enormously popular across Europe in the eighteenth century, and his works entered major collections from Madrid to London and New York.

Spanish BaroqueOil on canvasDrawingReligious and devotional scenes (Immaculate Conception, Madonna and Child, saints)Genre scenes of everyday life (flower girls, street urchins, beggars, children)Portraits and self-portraits

Common works and media

Murillo's most commonly encountered work types include oil paintings on canvas (religious altarpieces, devotional panels, and genre scenes), drawings in ink and wash, and preparatory sketches. Religious subjects dominate his output: Immaculate Conception compositions, Madonna and Child variants, saints' lives, and biblical narratives. His genre scenes depict Seville street life—children playing, flower girls, and beggar families. Portraits and self-portraits are rarer. Prints and reproductive engravings after Murillo's compositions were widely produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and still appear in the market.

Market and appraisal context

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo maintains an active and well-documented presence in the Old Master auction market, with 117 recorded lots spanning from September 2004 to March 2026 across ten named auction houses. Major houses Christie's and Sotheby's anchor the high end, while regional specialists—Hampel Fine Art Auctions (Munich), Setdart (Madrid), Isbilya Subastas (Seville), and Lucas Aste (Milan)—handle the bulk of mid-market and attribution-tier material. The price distribution is extremely wide: from €100 at the low end (mostly copies and reproductive prints) to a maximum of $2,472,000 for top-tier autograph works. The median price of $6,000 and 75th percentile of $73,080 reflect the bimodal nature of the market, where workshop pieces, copies, and follower works trade in the hundreds-to-low-thousands, while securely attributed paintings command five and six figures. Oil on canvas dominates the observed categories, with drawings forming a secondary segment. Recent activity (11 lots in the trailing 12 months versus 18 in the prior period) shows a moderate decline in volume, consistent with the naturally low supply of canonical Old Master works. The most significant recent result is a €150,000 sale at Magna Art Auctions in March 2025 for an El Niño Jesús subject.

Auction categories and appraisal factors

Common auction categories

  • Old Master Paintings
  • Old Master Drawings
  • Oil on canvas
  • Drawing

Value drivers

  1. [object Object]

Appraisal caveats

  • The Murillo market includes a significant number of workshop productions, later copies, and works attributed to followers. Attribution to Murillo himself requires expert connoisseurship and often scholarly committee review. No catalogue raisonné was available in the source pack to cross-reference specific works.
  • With 850 records in the Appraisily/Invaluable database, volume is high and many entries may represent prints, reproductions, or school-of works rather than autograph paintings by Murillo.
  • Of 117 recorded lots, only 60 have published realized prices, meaning the effective price distribution is based on roughly half the data. Unsold and unpublished-result lots may skew the observed distribution downward or upward.
  • The high lot count includes many workshop productions, later copies, reproductive prints, and follower works. The database does not always distinguish autograph paintings from attributed-circle or copy material in aggregate statistics.

Evidence

Sources for artist context

This source-grounded artist context passed Appraisily's promotion threshold: high confidence, strong sources.

Source-grounded artist Markdown

Data basis

This page is built from Appraisily's public auction market index. Private transactions, incomplete sale feeds, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

LLM-readable Markdown summary for Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

LLM summary index · LLM full index

Artist value FAQ

How much is Bartolomé Esteban Murillo worth?

Comparable public auction sales are the best starting point, but final value depends on the specific artwork, condition, size, medium, provenance, and attribution confidence.

Can Appraisily value my Bartolomé Esteban Murillo artwork?

Yes. Appraisily can review photos, dimensions, signatures, condition, provenance, and comparable market data to prepare a current valuation.