Although he was born in Seville, José María Bracho Murillo -when signing he inverted his surnames- is considered to belong to the Malaga school. He lived in Seville until 1876, where he studied at the Academy of Noble Arts of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, where in 1844, at the age of seventeen, he won the first prize in the classes of Model in Plaster and Pieces.

Among his teachers at that time was the famous painter Antonio María Esquivel, who became his teacher. He taught drawing in Cadiz in the middle of the century, and in 1854 he commissioned Esquivel to paint two large nude works: "La casta Susana" and "La mujer de Putifar". He also taught line and figure drawing at the Jerez de la Frontera secondary sch...