Thanks to the collaboration between the cultural authorities of both countries and the museums of Pau and the Louvre, the Museo del Prado will display a Murillo that was stolen in 1897 and had been on show in France.

The work is Murillo’s oil sketch for Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin, which came from the collection of Isabel Farnese. It was stolen from the Prado at the end of the nineteenth century and was later displayed in Pau.

During an inventory campaign led by the Louvre Museum at the Musée des Beaux‑Arts de Pau in 2024—an operation carried out every ten years following regulations requiring all works to be catalogued—one of the technicians involved raised the possibility that the piece might be by the Sevillian painter.

The painting is arriving at the Prado on a ten‑year temporary loan, pending new legislation currently being prepared by the French government to address situations of this kind. The Museo Nacional del Prado has worked in coordination with the Spanish Ministry of Culture on the necessary procedures.

The work will be on view from 1 December as part of the itinerary dedicated to Isabel Farnese, within the Museum’s “The Female Perspective” project.