The young Murillo first made his name with small genre scenes from the life of simple urban folk and homeless children, painted at a time when a plague was raging in his native Seville. His works are always full of a natural realism, free of ideological content. By the end of the 1640s, after he had traveled to Madrid and become acquainted with the painting of Velázquez and Venetian artists, his use of chiaroscuro grew finer and his compositions acquired a more stylised and sentimental character.