Magyar Posta is celebrating Christianity’s most important feast, Easter, by issuing a definitive stamp. This year the self-adhesive stamp with no value indication bearing the inscription “Domestic” shows a detail of the painting The Resurrection of Christ by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. The stamp and the graphic design of its accompanying cover and postmark were designed by the graphic artist György Kara and produced by Codex Értékpapírnyomda Zrt. The new issue will be available from Filaposta, philately specialist services, certain post offices and www.posta.hu from 20 February 2023.
Easter is Christianity’s most important feast. According to the New Testament, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, Sunday, after his crucifixion on Friday. By his death on the cross, he redeemed humankind of all their sins, and, by his resurrection, he triumphed over death.
The Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Seville, 1 January 1618 – Cadiz, 3 April 1682) was a prominent figure in Baroque Spanish painting. By the age of 14, he had already painted small pictures and made drawings on religious subjects. When he was 22 years old, he established a small workshop and sold his pictures in markets. In 1642, Murillo moved to Madrid, where he became a student of Velázquez, who gave him access to the royal palaces in Madrid and Toledo, and Monasterio del Escorial, where Murillo admired and copied the paintings of different masters, thereby perfecting his own art. In 1645, he returned to Seville. In the same year, he painted thirteen canvases for the monastery of San Francisco el Grande in Seville, which earnt him the recognition he deserved. Between 1658 and 1660, he again worked in Madrid. In 1660, he was involved in the foundation of the Academia de Pintura. This was his most productive period and the time when he received his most important commissions. His works on religious subjects are better known, but he also painted a considerable number of pictures of women and children of the period.
Part of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s painting The Resurrection of Christ can be seen in the Easter stamp and cover for 2023. The triumphal pennant symbolising Christ’s victory over death which features in the stamp design also appears in the imprint of the postmark on the first day cover.
