Audio Stop 415

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Two women with pale skin look out at us from the other side of a rectangular window opening with a shadowy interior behind them in this vertical painting. On our right, in the lower third of the composition, one young woman leans toward us over her left arm, which rests along the window ledge. She bends her right arm and props her chin on her fist. She looks at us with dark brown eyes under dark brows. She has shiny chestnut-brown hair with a strawberry-red bow on the right side of her head, to our left. She has a straight nose, and her full pink lips curve up in a smile. She wears a gossamer-white dress with a wide neckline trimmed in dark gray, with another red bow on the front of her chest. Her voluminous sleeves are pushed back to her elbows. To our left, a second woman peeks around a partially opened shutter. She is slightly older, and she stands next to the first woman with her body facing us. She tilts her head and also gazes at us with dark eyes under dark brown brows. She has dark brown hair covered by an oyster-white shawl. She holds the shawl up with her right hand to cover the bottom half of her face. Her mouth is hidden but her eyes crinkle as if in a smile. Her left arm bends at the elbow as she grasps the open shutter. She also wears a white shirt pushed back to her elbows, and a rose-pink skirt. The frame of the window runs parallel to the sides and bottom of the canvas. The room behind them is black in shadow.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Two Women at a Window, c. 1655/1660

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 34

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Two Women at a Window by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, painted around 1655 to 1660. Oil on canvas. The painting is just over 4 feet high by nearly 3 and a half feet wide.

This description is just over 2 minutes long.

Light falls across the upper bodies of two women looking out of a darkened window. The woman to our left stands slightly back, half hidden by a wooden shutter. The younger woman at our right leans onto the windowsill and looks out at us, smiling.

The window frame nearly fills the canvas, giving the impression that the canvas itself is a window, out of which the women meet our gaze.

Let’s look in more detail at the two women.

The woman on the left peers around the side of a wooden shutter, and is partly in shadow. She has white skin and dark brown hair, covered at the back by a white shawl. She holds the end of the shawl in her right hand over her mouth to hide a smile. We see one dimpled corner of her mouth, and there is a faint suggestion of smile lines at the corners of her eyes. With her left hand she holds the edge of the shutter.

To the right, the other woman is in full light. She has smooth, white skin and a round face with big brown eyes. Her silky brown hair is parted at her left and drawn back over her ears. She smiles and rests her chin in her right hand. That elbow is propped on the window ledge and her left forearm lies alongside. She wears a loose white blouse, pulled up to the elbows. The neckline has an olive-green border and is cut low to reveal her shoulders. At the V-neck is a carnation-red ribbon, matched by the hint of another ribbon in her hair above her right ear.

Behind the pair, the interior of the room is in darkness.

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