About this artwork

The basket of seasonal fruit and vegetables and the ears of barley tucked into his turban help identify this young man with Summer (some reference to the grape harvest would have been included for Autumn). His features and colouring suggest that Murillo used a real model for this painting but his athletic torso and the swirl of drapery over his shoulder link him with ideal figures from classical antiquity. Series of paintings representing the seasons and the senses were popular in the seventeenth century, but this is an unusual subject for Murillo. He may have painted it for his patron Justino de Neve.

Updated before 2020

  • artist:
  • title:
    A Young Man with a Basket of Fruit (Personification of 'Summer')
  • date created:
    About 1660 - 1665
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    99.00 x 79.00 cm; Framed: 142.50 x 121.50 x 17.80 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased by private treaty sale (hybrid Acceptance in Lieu) by the National Galleries of Scotland, with the aid of Art Fund, 1999
  • accession number:
    NG 2706
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo