In the antique convento de la Merced (Convent of Mercy), Seville is home to the second Pinacotheca (art gallery) in Spain.
Its main room, which was the monastery church, houses one of the principal paint collections by the master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.
What impressed me most was the spiritual force of the characters represented: their faces.
Created in 1835, it occupies the old Convent de la Merced Calzada, founded by St. Pedro Nolasco on land donated by Fernando III, after conquering Seville.
Located in plain city centre, about five minutes’ walk from the Plaza del Duque or La Campana. It is the second Spanish art gallery (the first, of course, is the Prado), and its specialty, to give it a name, is Spanish painting, although it also contains pieces by foreign artists as well as other disciplines such as sculpture.
In its halls one can see, creations by Murillo, Velázquez, Zurbarán or Valdés Leal, for example.
