Diego Velázquez
Encyclopedia
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (ˈdjeɣo roˈðriɣeθ ðe ˈsilβa i beˈlaθkeθ; June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court
of King Philip IV
. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque
period, important as a portrait artist
. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas
(1656).
From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist
and impressionist
painters, in particular Édouard Manet
. Since that time, more modern artists, including Spain's Pablo Picasso
and Salvador Dalí
, as well as the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works.
Born in Seville
, Andalusia, Spain, Diego, the first child of Juan Rodríguez de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez, was baptized at the church of St Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599. This christening must have followed the baby's birth by no more than a few weeks, or perhaps only a few days. Velázquez's paternal grandparents, Diego da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, had moved to Seville from their native Porto
, Portugal decades earlier. As for Juan Rodríguez de Silva and his wife, both were born in Seville, and were married, also at the church of St Peter, on December 28, 1597. They came from the lesser nobility and were accorded the privileges generally enjoyed by the gentry.
Velázquez was educated by his parents to fear God and, intended for a learned profession, received good training in language
s and philosophy. Influenced by many artists he showed an early gift for art; consequently, he began to study under Francisco de Herrera
, a vigorous painter who disregarded the Italian influence of the early Seville school. Velázquez remained with him for one year. It was probably from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles.
After leaving Herrera's studio when he was 12 years old, Velázquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco
, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a generally dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael
that he was taught. Velázquez remained in Pacheco's school for five years, studying proportion and perspective and witnessing the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.
By the early 1620s, his position and reputation were assured in Seville. On April 23, 1618, Velázquez married Juana Pacheco (June 1, 1602 – August 10, 1660), the daughter of his teacher. She bore him two daughters—his only known family. The elder, Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco (1619–1658), married painter Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo
at the Church of Santiago in Madrid on August 21, 1633; the younger, Ignacia de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, born in 1621, died in infancy.
Velázquez produced notable works during this time. Known for his compositions of amusing genre scenes (also called bodegón
es), such as Old Woman Frying Eggs, his sacred subjects include Adoración de los Reyes (1619, The Adoration of the Magi
), and Jesús y los peregrinos de Emaús (1626, Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism.
in the first half of April 1622, with letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, himself from Seville, who was chaplain to the King. At the request of Pacheco, Velázquez painted the portrait of the famous poet Luis de Góngora
. Velázquez painted Góngora crowned with a laurel wreath, but painted over it at some unknown later date. It is possible that Velázquez stopped in Toledo
on his way from Seville, on the advice of Pacheco, or back from Madrid on that of Góngora, a great admirer of El Greco
, having composed a poem on the occasion of his death.
In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando
, the king's favorite court painter, died. Don Juan de Fonseca conveyed to Velázquez the command to come to the court from the Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful minister of Philip IV
. He was offered 50 ducat
s (175 g of gold—worth about €2000 in 2005) to defray his expenses, and he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his own home and sat for a portrait himself, which, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace. A portrait of the king was commissioned. On August 16, 1623, Philip IV sat for Velázquez. Completed in one day, the portrait was likely to have been no more than a head sketch, but both the king and Olivares were pleased. Olivares commanded Velázquez to move to Madrid, promising that no other painter would ever paint Philip's portrait and all other portraits of the king would be withdrawn from circulation. In the following year, 1624, he received 300 ducats from the king to pay the cost of moving his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life.
Through the bust portrait of the king, painted in 1623, Velázquez secured admission to the royal service, with a salary of 20 ducats per month, besides medical attendance, lodgings and payment for the pictures he might paint. The portrait was exhibited on the steps of San Felipe and was received with enthusiasm. It is now lost. The Museo del Prado
, however, has two of Velázquez's portraits of the king (nos. 1070 and 1071) in which the severity of the Seville period has disappeared and the tones are more delicate. The modeling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II
, who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. In the same year, the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I
) arrived at the court of Spain. Records indicate that he sat for Velázquez, but the picture is now lost.
In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to Madrid as an emissary from the Infanta Isabella, and Velázquez accompanied him to view the Titian
s at the Escorial. Rubens was then at the height of his powers. The seven months of the diplomatic mission showed Rubens' brilliance as painter and courtier. Rubens had a high opinion of Velázquez, but he had no significant influence on his painting. He reinforced Velázquez's desire to see Italy and the works of the great Italian masters.
In 1627, Philip set a competition for the best painters of Spain with the subject to be the expulsion of the Moors
. Velázquez won. His picture was destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734. Recorded descriptions of it say that it depicted Philip III
pointing with his baton to a crowd of men and women being led away by soldiers, while the female personification of Spain
sits in calm repose. Velázquez was appointed gentleman usher as reward. Later he also received a daily allowance of 12 réis
, the same amount allotted to the court barbers, and 90 ducats a year for dress. Five years after he painted it in 1629, as an extra payment, he received 100 ducats for the picture of Bacchus
(The Feast of Bacchus). The spirit and aim of this work are better understood from its Spanish name, Los Borrachos (The Drunks) or Los Bebedores (the drinkers), who are paying mock homage to a half-naked ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. The painting is firm and solid, and the light and shade are more deftly handled than in former works. Altogether, this production may be taken as the most advanced example of the first style of Velázquez.
, looking dignified and lordly even in his childhood, in the dress of a field marshal on his prancing steed. The scene is in the riding school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares attends as master of the horse to the prince. Don Baltasar died in 1646 at the age of seventeen, so, judging by his age in the portrait, it must have been painted in about 1641.
The powerful minister Olivares was the early and constant patron of the painter. His impassive, saturnine face is familiar to us from the many portraits painted by Velázquez. Two are notable; one is a full-length, stately and dignified, in which he wears the green cross of the order of Alcantara
and holds a wand, the badge of his office as master of the horse, the other, a great equestrian portrait in which he is flatteringly represented as a field marshal during action. In these portraits, Velázquez has well repaid the debt of gratitude that he owed to his first patron, whom Velázquez stood by during Olivares's fall from power, thus exposing himself to the great risk of the anger of the jealous Philip. The king, however, showed no sign of malice towards his favorite painter.
The sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés
modeled a statue of one of Velázquez's equestrian portraits of the king, painted in 1636, which was cast in bronze by the Florentine
sculptor Pietro Tacca
and which now stands in the Plaza de Oriente at Madrid. The original of this portrait no longer exists, but several others do. Velázquez, in this and in all his portraits of the king, depicts Philip wearing the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was so proud of it that he celebrated it by a festival followed by a procession to the church to thank God for the blessing. Thus, the golilla was the height of fashion, and appeared in most of the male portraits of the period.
Velázquez was in constant and close attendance on Philip, accompanying him in his journeys to Aragon
in 1642 and 1644, and was doubtless present with him when he entered Lerida as a conqueror. It was then that he painted a great equestrian portrait in which the king is represented as a great commander leading his troops—a role which Philip never played except in pageantry. All is full of animation except the stolid face of the king. It hangs as a pendant to the great Olivares portrait—fit rivals of the neighboring Charles V by Titian
, which inspired Velázquez to excel himself, and both remarkable for their silvery tone and their feeling of open air.
. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and the poet Francisco de Quevedo
(now at Apsley House
), sat for Velázquez.
Velázquez also painted several buffoons and dwarfs in Philip's court, often with respect and sympathetically, as in The Favorite (1644), whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink-bottle and pen by his side show him to be a wiser and better-educated man than many of the gallants of the court. Pablo de Valladolid (1635), a buffoon evidently acting a part, and The Buffoon of Coria (1639) belong to this middle period.
The greatest of the religious paintings by Velázquez also belongs to this middle period, the Christ Crucified (1632). It is a work of tremendous originality, depicting Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The figure stands alone. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory, but this addition has since been removed. Some believe that the man in this painting is his uncle.
Velázquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo
had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and Mazo himself had received a steady promotion in the royal household. Mazo received a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and was appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647.
Philip now entrusted Velázquez with carrying out a design on which he had long set his heart: the founding of an academy of art in Spain. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and Velázquez was commissioned once again to proceed to Italy to make purchases.
, whom he trained in painting, Velázquez sailed from Málaga
in 1649, landing at Genoa
, and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying paintings of Titian
, Tintoretto
and Veronese
as he went. At Modena
he was received with much favor by the duke, and here he painted the portrait of the duke at the Modena gallery and two portraits that now adorn the Dresden
gallery, for these paintings came from the Modena sale of 1746.
Those works presage the advent of the painter's third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Pope Innocent X
in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery
in Rome, where Velázquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favor by the Pope, who presented him with a medal and golden chain. Velázquez took a copy of the portrait—which Sir Joshua Reynolds
thought was the finest picture in Rome—with him to Spain. Several copies of it exist in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. Velázquez, in this work, had now reached the manera abreviada, a term coined by contemporary Spaniards for this bolder, sharper style. The portrait shows such ruthlessness in Innocent's expression that some in the Vatican
feared that Velázquez would meet with the Pope's displeasure, but Innocent was well pleased with the work, hanging it in his official visitor's waiting room.
In 1650 in Rome Velázquez also painted a portrait of Juan de Pareja
, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York City, USA. This portrait procured his election into the Academy of St. Luke. Purportedly Velázquez created this portrait as a warm-up of his skills before his portrait of the Pope. It captures in great detail Pareja's countenance and his somewhat worn and patched clothing with an economic use of brushwork.
, where he saw his old friend Jose Ribera, he returned to Spain via Barcelona
in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which afterwards were arranged and catalogued for the king. Undraped sculpture was, however, abhorrent to the Spanish Church, and after Philip's death these works gradually disappeared.
Elisabeth of France had died in 1644, and the king had married Mariana of Austria
, whom Velázquez now painted in many attitudes. He was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of aposentador mayor, which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court—a responsible function which was no sinecure
and one which interfered with the exercise of his art. Yet far from indicating any decline, his works of this period are amongst the highest examples of his style.
, the eldest daughter of the new Queen, appears to be subject of Las Meninas
(1656, English: The Maids of Honour), Velázquez's magnum opus
. However, in looking at the various viewpoints of the painting it is unclear as to who or what is the true subject. Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The answer may lie in the image on the back wall, depicting the King and Queen. Is this image a mirror, in which case the King and Queen are standing where the spectator stands? Are they the subject of Velazquez's work? Or is the work simply a court painting? Much is still in speculation about the true subject of this masterpiece, and many of the questions that are asked may never be truly answered.
Created four years before his death, it serves as an outstanding example of the European baroque
period of art. An apotheosis of the work has been effected since its creation; Luca Giordano
, a contemporary Italian painter, referred to it as the "theology of painting", and in the eighteenth century the Englishman Thomas Lawrence
cited it as the "philosophy of art", so decidedly capable of producing its desired effect. That effect has been variously interpreted; Dale Brown points out an interpretation that, in inserting within the work a faded portrait of the king and queen hanging on the back wall, Velázquez has ingeniously prognosticated the fall of the Spanish empire
that was to gain momentum following his death. Another interpretation is that the portrait is in fact a mirror, and that the painting itself is in the perspective of the King and Queen, hence their reflection can be seen in the mirror on the back wall.
It is said the king painted the honorary Cross of Saint James of the Order of Santiago
on the breast of the painter as it appears today on the canvas. However, Velázquez did not receive this honor of knighthood until three years after execution of this painting. Even the King of Spain could not make his favorite a belted knight without the consent of the commission established to inquire into the purity of his lineage. The aim of these inquiries would be to prevent the appointment to positions of anyone found to have even a taint of heresy in their lineage—that is, a trace of Jewish or Moorish blood or contamination by trade or commerce in either side of the family for many generations. The records of this commission have been found among the archives of the Order of Santiago. Velázquez was awarded the honor in 1659. His occupation as plebeian and tradesman was justified because, as painter to the king, he was evidently not involved in the practice of "selling" pictures.
In the 1966 book Les Mots et Les Choses (The Order of Things
), philosopher Michel Foucault
devotes the opening chapter to a detailed analysis of Las Meninas. He describes the ways in which the painting problematizes issues of representation through its use of mirrors, screens, and the subsequent oscillations that occur between the image's interior, surface, and exterior. In his book, The Dying Animal
, Philip Roth
uses Las Meninas as a metaphor for the distracted attraction of courtship.
, he would not have been able to release his La Venus del espejo (c. 1644–1648, English: Venus at her Mirror) also known as The Rokeby Venus. It is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez.
There were essentially only two patrons of art in Spain—the church and the art-loving king and court. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
was the artist favored by the church, while Velázquez was patronized by the crown. One difference, however, deserves to be noted. Murillo, who toiled for a rich and powerful church, left little means to pay for his burial, while Velázquez lived and died in the enjoyment of good salaries and pensions.
One of his final works was Las hilanderas (The Spinners)
, painted circa 1657, representing either the interior of the royal tapestry works or a depiction of Ovid's Fable of Arachne
, depending on interpretation. The tapestry in the background is based on Titian
's The Rape of Europa, or, more probably, the copy that Rubens painted in Madrid
. It is full of light, air and movement, featuring vibrant colors and careful handling. Anton Raphael Mengs
said this work seemed to have been painted not by the hand but by the pure force of will. It displays a concentration of all the art-knowledge Velázquez had gathered during his long artistic career of more than forty years. The scheme is simple—a confluence of varied and blended red, bluish-green, grey and black.
Velazquez' final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works. These include the Infanta Margarita in blue dress and his only surviving portrait of the sickly Prince Felipe Prospero. The latter is remarkable for its combination of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog with a subtle sense of gloom. As in all of the artist's late paintings, the handling of the colors is extraordinarily fluid and vibrant.
In 1660 a peace treaty between France and Spain was consummated by the marriage of Maria Theresa
with Louis XIV
, and the ceremony took place on the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velázquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the entire scenic display. He attracted much attention from the nobility of his bearing and the splendor of his costume. On June 26 he returned to Madrid, and on July 31 he was stricken with fever. Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend named Fuensalida, keeper of the royal records. He died on August 6, 1660. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of San Juan Bautista, and within eight days his wife Juana was buried beside him. Unfortunately, this church was destroyed by the French in 1811, so his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding between Velázquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after the death of King Philip, that they were finally settled.
Until the nineteenth century, little was known outside of Spain of Velázquez's work. His paintings mostly escaped being stolen by the French marshals during the Peninsular War
. In 1828 Sir David Wilkie
wrote from Madrid that he felt himself in the presence of a new power in art as he looked at the works of Velázquez, and at the same time found a wonderful affinity between this artist and the British school of portrait painters, especially Henry Raeburn
. He was struck by the modern impression pervading Velázquez's work in both landscape and portraiture.
Presently, his technique and individuality have earned Velázquez a prominent position in the annals of European art, and he is often considered a father of the Spanish school of art. Although acquainted with all the Italian schools and a friend of the foremost painters of his day, he was strong enough to withstand external influences and work out for himself the development of his own nature and his own principles of art.
Velázquez is often cited as a key influence on the art of Édouard Manet
, important when considering that Manet is often cited as the bridge between realism and impressionism
. Calling Velázquez the "painter of painters", Manet admired Velázquez's use of vivid brushwork in the midst of the baroque academic style of his contemporaries and built upon Velázquez's motifs in his own art.
presented the most durable homages to Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated Las Meninas in 58 variations, in his characteristically cubist
form. Although Picasso was concerned that his reinterpretations of Velázquez's painting would be seen merely as copies rather than unique representations, the enormous works—including the largest he had produced since Guernica
in 1937—earned a position of relevance in the Spanish canon of art. Picasso retained the general form and positioning of the original in the framework of his avant-garde
cubist style.
Salvador Dalí
, as with Picasso in anticipation of the tercentennial of Velázquez's death, created in 1958 a work entitled Velázquez Painting the Infanta Margarita With the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory. The color scheme shows Dalí's serious tribute to Velázquez; the work also functioned, as in Picasso's case, as a vehicle for the presentation of newer theories in art and thought—nuclear mysticism, in Dalí's case.
The Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon
found Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X to be one of the greatest portraits ever made. He created several expressionist
variations of this piece in the 1950s; however, Bacon's paintings presented a more gruesome image of the pope, who had now been dead for centuries. One such famous variation, entitled Figure with Meat
(1954), shows the pope between two halves of a bisected cow.
in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, which had long been associated with the followers of Velázquez' style of painting, was cleaned and restored. It was found to be by Velázquez himself, and the features of the man match those of a figure in the painting "the Surrender of Breda". The newly cleaned canvas may therefore be a study for that painting. Although the attribution to Velazquez is regarded as certain, the identity of the sitter is still open to question. Some art historians regard this new study to be a self-portrait by Velázquez.
In 2010 it was reported that a damaged painting long relegated to a basement of the Yale University Art Gallery
might be an early work by Velázquez. Thought to have been given to Yale in 1925, the painting has previously been attributed to the 17th century Spanish school. Some scholars are prepared to attribute the painting to Velázquez, though the Prado Museum in Madrid is reserving judgment. The work, which depicts the Virgin Mary being taught to read, will be restored by conservators at Yale.
In October 2011 it was confirmed that a portrait found in the UK in the former collection of the 19th century painter Matthew Shepperson is a previously unknown work by Velázquez. The portrait is of an unidentified man in his fifties or sixties, who could possibly be Juan Mateos, the Master of the Hunt for Velázquez's patron, King Philip IV of Spain. The painting measures 47 x 39cm and will be sold at auction on December 7th, 2011. It is estimated to sell for £2,000,000 - £3,000,000.
, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
, King Albert II of Belgium
, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein
, and Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
.
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
of King Philip IV
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period, important as a portrait artist
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas
Las Meninas
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures...
(1656).
From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
and impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
painters, in particular Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
. Since that time, more modern artists, including Spain's Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, as well as the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works.
Early life
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
, Andalusia, Spain, Diego, the first child of Juan Rodríguez de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez, was baptized at the church of St Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599. This christening must have followed the baby's birth by no more than a few weeks, or perhaps only a few days. Velázquez's paternal grandparents, Diego da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, had moved to Seville from their native Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, Portugal decades earlier. As for Juan Rodríguez de Silva and his wife, both were born in Seville, and were married, also at the church of St Peter, on December 28, 1597. They came from the lesser nobility and were accorded the privileges generally enjoyed by the gentry.
Velázquez was educated by his parents to fear God and, intended for a learned profession, received good training in language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s and philosophy. Influenced by many artists he showed an early gift for art; consequently, he began to study under Francisco de Herrera
Francisco Herrera the Elder
Francisco Herrera was a distinguished Spanish painter, born at Seville. He was the founder of the Seville school.Herrera's finest paintings include "The Last Judgment" and a "Holy Family," both in churches at Seville. Others are in the Louvre, Paris. They exhibit boldness of execution with...
, a vigorous painter who disregarded the Italian influence of the early Seville school. Velázquez remained with him for one year. It was probably from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles.
After leaving Herrera's studio when he was 12 years old, Velázquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco
Francisco Pacheco
Francisco Pacheco was a Spanish painter, best known as the teacher of Diego Velázquez and Alonso Cano, and for his textbook on painting that is an important source for the study of 17th-century practice in Spain...
, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a generally dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
that he was taught. Velázquez remained in Pacheco's school for five years, studying proportion and perspective and witnessing the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.
To Madrid (early period)
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo was a Spanish Baroque portrait and landscape painter, the most distinguished of the followers of Velázquez, whose style he imitated more closely than did any other artist...
at the Church of Santiago in Madrid on August 21, 1633; the younger, Ignacia de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, born in 1621, died in infancy.
Velázquez produced notable works during this time. Known for his compositions of amusing genre scenes (also called bodegón
Bodegón
The term bodega in Spanish can mean "pantry", "tavern", or "wine cellar". The derivative term bodegón is an augmentative that refers to a large bodega, usually in a derogatory fashion...
es), such as Old Woman Frying Eggs, his sacred subjects include Adoración de los Reyes (1619, The Adoration of the Magi
Adoration of the Magi (Velázquez)
The Adoration of the Magi is a 1619 Baroque painting by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez now held in the Museo del Prado. It shows two white kings and one black king presenting gifts to the Christ child. The child in the painting, however, is not Jesus Christ but Velasquez's own daughter...
), and Jesús y los peregrinos de Emaús (1626, Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism.
Madrid and Philip IV
Velázquez went to MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
in the first half of April 1622, with letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, himself from Seville, who was chaplain to the King. At the request of Pacheco, Velázquez painted the portrait of the famous poet Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered to be the most prominent Spanish poets of their age. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorism...
. Velázquez painted Góngora crowned with a laurel wreath, but painted over it at some unknown later date. It is possible that Velázquez stopped in Toledo
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...
on his way from Seville, on the advice of Pacheco, or back from Madrid on that of Góngora, a great admirer of El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, having composed a poem on the occasion of his death.
In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando
Rodrigo de Villandrando (painter)
Rodrigo de Villandrando was a court painter during the reign of Philip III of Spain. He worked in the tradition of Alonso Sánchez Coello and Juan Pantoja de la Cruz. His death opened the road to court for the young painter Diego Velázquez from Sevilla.-External links:*...
, the king's favorite court painter, died. Don Juan de Fonseca conveyed to Velázquez the command to come to the court from the Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful minister of Philip IV
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
. He was offered 50 ducat
Ducat
The ducat is a gold coin that was used as a trade coin throughout Europe before World War I. Its weight is 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, actual gold weight...
s (175 g of gold—worth about €2000 in 2005) to defray his expenses, and he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his own home and sat for a portrait himself, which, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace. A portrait of the king was commissioned. On August 16, 1623, Philip IV sat for Velázquez. Completed in one day, the portrait was likely to have been no more than a head sketch, but both the king and Olivares were pleased. Olivares commanded Velázquez to move to Madrid, promising that no other painter would ever paint Philip's portrait and all other portraits of the king would be withdrawn from circulation. In the following year, 1624, he received 300 ducats from the king to pay the cost of moving his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life.
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, however, has two of Velázquez's portraits of the king (nos. 1070 and 1071) in which the severity of the Seville period has disappeared and the tones are more delicate. The modeling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. In the same year, the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
) arrived at the court of Spain. Records indicate that he sat for Velázquez, but the picture is now lost.
In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to Madrid as an emissary from the Infanta Isabella, and Velázquez accompanied him to view the Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
s at the Escorial. Rubens was then at the height of his powers. The seven months of the diplomatic mission showed Rubens' brilliance as painter and courtier. Rubens had a high opinion of Velázquez, but he had no significant influence on his painting. He reinforced Velázquez's desire to see Italy and the works of the great Italian masters.
In 1627, Philip set a competition for the best painters of Spain with the subject to be the expulsion of the Moors
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
. Velázquez won. His picture was destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734. Recorded descriptions of it say that it depicted Philip III
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...
pointing with his baton to a crowd of men and women being led away by soldiers, while the female personification of Spain
Allegory of Hispania
The allegory of Hispania is the national personification of Spain. She appeared on aurei of Hadrian in the early 2nd century, and then on the Spanish peseta from 1870....
sits in calm repose. Velázquez was appointed gentleman usher as reward. Later he also received a daily allowance of 12 réis
Brazilian real
The real is the present-day currency of Brazil. Its sign is R$ and its ISO code is BRL. It is subdivided into 100 centavos ....
, the same amount allotted to the court barbers, and 90 ducats a year for dress. Five years after he painted it in 1629, as an extra payment, he received 100 ducats for the picture of Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
(The Feast of Bacchus). The spirit and aim of this work are better understood from its Spanish name, Los Borrachos (The Drunks) or Los Bebedores (the drinkers), who are paying mock homage to a half-naked ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. The painting is firm and solid, and the light and shade are more deftly handled than in former works. Altogether, this production may be taken as the most advanced example of the first style of Velázquez.
Italian period
In 1629, he went to live in Italy for a year and a half. Though his first Italian visit is recognized as a crucial chapter in the development of Velázquez's style – and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip IV sponsored his trip – we know rather little about the details and specifics: what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting. It is canonical to divide the artistic career of Velázquez by his two visits to Italy, with his second grouping of works following the first visit and his third grouping following the second visit. This somewhat arbitrary division may be accepted though it will not always apply, because, as is usual in the case of many painters, his styles at times overlap each other. Velázquez rarely signed his pictures, and the royal archives give the dates of only his most important works. Internal evidence and history pertaining to his portraits supply the rest to a certain extent.Return to Madrid (middle period)
Velázquez then painted the first of many portraits of the young prince and heir to the Spanish throne, Don Baltasar CarlosEquestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar Charles
The Equestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar Charles is a 1635 equestrian portrait of Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias by Diego Velázquez...
, looking dignified and lordly even in his childhood, in the dress of a field marshal on his prancing steed. The scene is in the riding school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares attends as master of the horse to the prince. Don Baltasar died in 1646 at the age of seventeen, so, judging by his age in the portrait, it must have been painted in about 1641.
Order of Alcántara
The Order of Alcántara , also called the Knights of St. Julian, was originally a military order of León, founded in 1166 and confirmed by Pope Alexander III in 1177.-Alcántara:...
and holds a wand, the badge of his office as master of the horse, the other, a great equestrian portrait in which he is flatteringly represented as a field marshal during action. In these portraits, Velázquez has well repaid the debt of gratitude that he owed to his first patron, whom Velázquez stood by during Olivares's fall from power, thus exposing himself to the great risk of the anger of the jealous Philip. The king, however, showed no sign of malice towards his favorite painter.
The sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés
Juan Martínez Montañés
Juan Martínez Montañés , known as el Dios de la Madera , was a Spanish sculptor, born at Alcalá la Real, in the province of Jaén. He was one of the most important figures of the Sevillian school of sculpture.His master was Pablo de Roxas. His first known work, dating 1597, is the graceful St...
modeled a statue of one of Velázquez's equestrian portraits of the king, painted in 1636, which was cast in bronze by the Florentine
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
sculptor Pietro Tacca
Pietro Tacca
Pietro Tacca was an Italian sculptor, who was the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity.-Biography:...
and which now stands in the Plaza de Oriente at Madrid. The original of this portrait no longer exists, but several others do. Velázquez, in this and in all his portraits of the king, depicts Philip wearing the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was so proud of it that he celebrated it by a festival followed by a procession to the church to thank God for the blessing. Thus, the golilla was the height of fashion, and appeared in most of the male portraits of the period.
Velázquez was in constant and close attendance on Philip, accompanying him in his journeys to Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
in 1642 and 1644, and was doubtless present with him when he entered Lerida as a conqueror. It was then that he painted a great equestrian portrait in which the king is represented as a great commander leading his troops—a role which Philip never played except in pageantry. All is full of animation except the stolid face of the king. It hangs as a pendant to the great Olivares portrait—fit rivals of the neighboring Charles V by Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, which inspired Velázquez to excel himself, and both remarkable for their silvery tone and their feeling of open air.
Portraiture
Besides the forty portraits of Philip by Velázquez, he painted portraits of other members of the royal family: Philip's first wife, Elisabeth of Bourbon, and her children, especially her eldest son, Don Baltasar Carlos, of whom there is a beautiful full-length in a private room at Buckingham PalaceBuckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and the poet Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, Quevedo was one of the most prominent Spanish poets of the age. His style is characterized by what was called conceptismo...
(now at Apsley House
Apsley House
Apsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...
), sat for Velázquez.
The greatest of the religious paintings by Velázquez also belongs to this middle period, the Christ Crucified (1632). It is a work of tremendous originality, depicting Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The figure stands alone. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory, but this addition has since been removed. Some believe that the man in this painting is his uncle.
Velázquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo
Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo was a Spanish Baroque portrait and landscape painter, the most distinguished of the followers of Velázquez, whose style he imitated more closely than did any other artist...
had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and Mazo himself had received a steady promotion in the royal household. Mazo received a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and was appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647.
Second visit to Italy
Accompanied by his manservant Juan de ParejaJuan de Pareja
Juan de Pareja was a Spanish painter, born in Antequera, near Malaga, Spain. He is primarily known as a member of the household and workshop of painter Diego Velázquez. His 1661 work The Calling of St. Matthew is currently on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain...
, whom he trained in painting, Velázquez sailed from Málaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
in 1649, landing at Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying paintings of Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...
and Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
as he went. At Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
he was received with much favor by the duke, and here he painted the portrait of the duke at the Modena gallery and two portraits that now adorn the Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
gallery, for these paintings came from the Modena sale of 1746.
Those works presage the advent of the painter's third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Pope Innocent X
Pope Innocent X
Pope Innocent X , born Giovanni Battista Pamphilj , was Pope from 1644 to 1655. Born in Rome of a family from Gubbio in Umbria who had come to Rome during the pontificate of Pope Innocent IX, he graduated from the Collegio Romano and followed a conventional cursus honorum, following his uncle...
in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery
Doria Pamphilj Gallery
The Doria Pamphilj Gallery is a large art collection housed in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, Italy. It is situated between the Via del Corso and Via della Gatta. The principal entrance is on the Via del Corso...
in Rome, where Velázquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favor by the Pope, who presented him with a medal and golden chain. Velázquez took a copy of the portrait—which Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
thought was the finest picture in Rome—with him to Spain. Several copies of it exist in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. Velázquez, in this work, had now reached the manera abreviada, a term coined by contemporary Spaniards for this bolder, sharper style. The portrait shows such ruthlessness in Innocent's expression that some in the Vatican
Vatican City
Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...
feared that Velázquez would meet with the Pope's displeasure, but Innocent was well pleased with the work, hanging it in his official visitor's waiting room.
In 1650 in Rome Velázquez also painted a portrait of Juan de Pareja
Portrait of Juan de Pareja
The Portrait of Juan de Pareja is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, dating from around 1650 and currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, United States.-History:...
, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York City, USA. This portrait procured his election into the Academy of St. Luke. Purportedly Velázquez created this portrait as a warm-up of his skills before his portrait of the Pope. It captures in great detail Pareja's countenance and his somewhat worn and patched clothing with an economic use of brushwork.
Return to Spain and later career
King Philip wished that Velázquez return to Spain; accordingly, after a visit to NaplesNaples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, where he saw his old friend Jose Ribera, he returned to Spain via Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which afterwards were arranged and catalogued for the king. Undraped sculpture was, however, abhorrent to the Spanish Church, and after Philip's death these works gradually disappeared.
Elisabeth of France had died in 1644, and the king had married Mariana of Austria
Mariana of Austria
Mariana of Austria was Queen consort of Spain as the second wife of King Philip IV, who was also her maternal uncle...
, whom Velázquez now painted in many attitudes. He was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of aposentador mayor, which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court—a responsible function which was no sinecure
Sinecure
A sinecure means an office that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service...
and one which interfered with the exercise of his art. Yet far from indicating any decline, his works of this period are amongst the highest examples of his style.
Las Meninas
One of the infantas, Margaret TheresaMargaret Theresa of Spain
Margaret Theresa of Spain was Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Archduchess consort of Austria, Queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia. She was the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and his second wife Mariana of Austria...
, the eldest daughter of the new Queen, appears to be subject of Las Meninas
Las Meninas
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures...
(1656, English: The Maids of Honour), Velázquez's magnum opus
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....
. However, in looking at the various viewpoints of the painting it is unclear as to who or what is the true subject. Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The answer may lie in the image on the back wall, depicting the King and Queen. Is this image a mirror, in which case the King and Queen are standing where the spectator stands? Are they the subject of Velazquez's work? Or is the work simply a court painting? Much is still in speculation about the true subject of this masterpiece, and many of the questions that are asked may never be truly answered.
Created four years before his death, it serves as an outstanding example of the European baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period of art. An apotheosis of the work has been effected since its creation; Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain....
, a contemporary Italian painter, referred to it as the "theology of painting", and in the eighteenth century the Englishman Thomas Lawrence
Thomas Lawrence (painter)
Sir Thomas Lawrence RA FRS was a leading English portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy.Lawrence was a child prodigy. He was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper. At the age of ten, having moved to Bath, he was supporting his family with his...
cited it as the "philosophy of art", so decidedly capable of producing its desired effect. That effect has been variously interpreted; Dale Brown points out an interpretation that, in inserting within the work a faded portrait of the king and queen hanging on the back wall, Velázquez has ingeniously prognosticated the fall of the Spanish empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
that was to gain momentum following his death. Another interpretation is that the portrait is in fact a mirror, and that the painting itself is in the perspective of the King and Queen, hence their reflection can be seen in the mirror on the back wall.
It is said the king painted the honorary Cross of Saint James of the Order of Santiago
Order of Santiago
The Order of Santiago was founded in the 12th century, and owes its name to the national patron of Galicia and Spain, Santiago , under whose banner the Christians of Galicia and Asturias began in the 9th century to combat and drive back the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula.-History:Santiago de...
on the breast of the painter as it appears today on the canvas. However, Velázquez did not receive this honor of knighthood until three years after execution of this painting. Even the King of Spain could not make his favorite a belted knight without the consent of the commission established to inquire into the purity of his lineage. The aim of these inquiries would be to prevent the appointment to positions of anyone found to have even a taint of heresy in their lineage—that is, a trace of Jewish or Moorish blood or contamination by trade or commerce in either side of the family for many generations. The records of this commission have been found among the archives of the Order of Santiago. Velázquez was awarded the honor in 1659. His occupation as plebeian and tradesman was justified because, as painter to the king, he was evidently not involved in the practice of "selling" pictures.
In the 1966 book Les Mots et Les Choses (The Order of Things
The Order of Things
The Order of Things is a book by Michel Foucault first published in 1966. The full title is Les Mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines...
), philosopher Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
devotes the opening chapter to a detailed analysis of Las Meninas. He describes the ways in which the painting problematizes issues of representation through its use of mirrors, screens, and the subsequent oscillations that occur between the image's interior, surface, and exterior. In his book, The Dying Animal
The Dying Animal
The Dying Animal is a short novel by the US writer Philip Roth. It tells the story of senior literature professor David Kepesh, renowned for his literature-themed radio show. Kepesh is finally destroyed by his inability to comprehend emotional commitment...
, Philip Roth
Philip Roth
Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a National Book Award...
uses Las Meninas as a metaphor for the distracted attraction of courtship.
Final years
Had it not been for this royal appointment, which enabled Velázquez to escape the censorship of the InquisitionSpanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
, he would not have been able to release his La Venus del espejo (c. 1644–1648, English: Venus at her Mirror) also known as The Rokeby Venus. It is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez.
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
was the artist favored by the church, while Velázquez was patronized by the crown. One difference, however, deserves to be noted. Murillo, who toiled for a rich and powerful church, left little means to pay for his burial, while Velázquez lived and died in the enjoyment of good salaries and pensions.
One of his final works was Las hilanderas (The Spinners)
Las Hilanderas (Velázquez)
Las Hilanderas is a painting by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, dating from c. 1657 and housed in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, Spain. It was painted for Don Pedro de Arce, huntsman to King Philip IV...
, painted circa 1657, representing either the interior of the royal tapestry works or a depiction of Ovid's Fable of Arachne
Arachne
In Greco-Roman mythology, Arachne was a great mortal weaver who boasted that her skill was greater than that of Minerva, the Latin parallel of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom and crafts. Arachne refused to acknowledge that her knowledge came, in part at least, from the goddess. The offended...
, depending on interpretation. The tapestry in the background is based on Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
's The Rape of Europa, or, more probably, the copy that Rubens painted in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. It is full of light, air and movement, featuring vibrant colors and careful handling. Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs
Anton Raphael Mengs was a German painter, active in Rome, Madrid and Saxony, who became one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting.- Biography :Mengs was born in 1728 at Ústí nad Labem in Bohemia...
said this work seemed to have been painted not by the hand but by the pure force of will. It displays a concentration of all the art-knowledge Velázquez had gathered during his long artistic career of more than forty years. The scheme is simple—a confluence of varied and blended red, bluish-green, grey and black.
Velazquez' final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works. These include the Infanta Margarita in blue dress and his only surviving portrait of the sickly Prince Felipe Prospero. The latter is remarkable for its combination of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog with a subtle sense of gloom. As in all of the artist's late paintings, the handling of the colors is extraordinarily fluid and vibrant.
In 1660 a peace treaty between France and Spain was consummated by the marriage of Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa of Spain
Maria Theresa of Austria was the daughter of Philip IV, King of Spain and Elizabeth of France. Maria Theresa was Queen of France as wife of King Louis XIV and mother of the Grand Dauphin, an ancestor of the last four Bourbon kings of France.-Early life:Born as Infanta María Teresa of Spain at the...
with Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, and the ceremony took place on the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velázquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the entire scenic display. He attracted much attention from the nobility of his bearing and the splendor of his costume. On June 26 he returned to Madrid, and on July 31 he was stricken with fever. Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend named Fuensalida, keeper of the royal records. He died on August 6, 1660. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of San Juan Bautista, and within eight days his wife Juana was buried beside him. Unfortunately, this church was destroyed by the French in 1811, so his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding between Velázquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after the death of King Philip, that they were finally settled.
In modernity
Peninsular War
The Peninsular War was a war between France and the allied powers of Spain, the United Kingdom, and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. The war began when French and Spanish armies crossed Spain and invaded Portugal in 1807. Then, in 1808, France turned on its...
. In 1828 Sir David Wilkie
David Wilkie (artist)
Sir David Wilkie was a Scottish painter.- Early life :Wilkie was the son of the parish minister of Cults in Fife. He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kettle and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter...
wrote from Madrid that he felt himself in the presence of a new power in art as he looked at the works of Velázquez, and at the same time found a wonderful affinity between this artist and the British school of portrait painters, especially Henry Raeburn
Henry Raeburn
Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter, the first significant Scottish portraitist since the Act of Union 1707 to remain based in Scotland.-Biography:...
. He was struck by the modern impression pervading Velázquez's work in both landscape and portraiture.
Presently, his technique and individuality have earned Velázquez a prominent position in the annals of European art, and he is often considered a father of the Spanish school of art. Although acquainted with all the Italian schools and a friend of the foremost painters of his day, he was strong enough to withstand external influences and work out for himself the development of his own nature and his own principles of art.
Velázquez is often cited as a key influence on the art of Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, important when considering that Manet is often cited as the bridge between realism and impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. Calling Velázquez the "painter of painters", Manet admired Velázquez's use of vivid brushwork in the midst of the baroque academic style of his contemporaries and built upon Velázquez's motifs in his own art.
Modern recreations of classics
The importance of Velázquez's art even today is evident in considering the respect with which twentieth century painters regard his work. Pablo PicassoPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
presented the most durable homages to Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated Las Meninas in 58 variations, in his characteristically cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
form. Although Picasso was concerned that his reinterpretations of Velázquez's painting would be seen merely as copies rather than unique representations, the enormous works—including the largest he had produced since Guernica
Guernica (painting)
Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
in 1937—earned a position of relevance in the Spanish canon of art. Picasso retained the general form and positioning of the original in the framework of his avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
cubist style.
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, as with Picasso in anticipation of the tercentennial of Velázquez's death, created in 1958 a work entitled Velázquez Painting the Infanta Margarita With the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory. The color scheme shows Dalí's serious tribute to Velázquez; the work also functioned, as in Picasso's case, as a vehicle for the presentation of newer theories in art and thought—nuclear mysticism, in Dalí's case.
The Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon (painter)
Francis Bacon , was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his bold, austere, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. Bacon's painterly but abstract figures typically appear isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds...
found Velázquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X to be one of the greatest portraits ever made. He created several expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
variations of this piece in the 1950s; however, Bacon's paintings presented a more gruesome image of the pope, who had now been dead for centuries. One such famous variation, entitled Figure with Meat
Figure with Meat
Figure with Meat is a 1954 painting by the Irish born artist Francis Bacon. The figure is based on the Pope Innocent X portrait by Diego Velázquez; however, in the Bacon painting the Pope is shown as a tragic figure and placed between two bisected halves of a cow. The carcass hanging in the...
(1954), shows the pope between two halves of a bisected cow.
Recent rediscoveries of Velázquez originals
In 2009, the Portrait of a ManPortrait of a Man (Velazquez)
Portrait of a Man is an oil painting measuring 27 × 21 in. by Diego Velázquez, painted c. 1630. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City...
in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, which had long been associated with the followers of Velázquez' style of painting, was cleaned and restored. It was found to be by Velázquez himself, and the features of the man match those of a figure in the painting "the Surrender of Breda". The newly cleaned canvas may therefore be a study for that painting. Although the attribution to Velazquez is regarded as certain, the identity of the sitter is still open to question. Some art historians regard this new study to be a self-portrait by Velázquez.
In 2010 it was reported that a damaged painting long relegated to a basement of the Yale University Art Gallery
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
might be an early work by Velázquez. Thought to have been given to Yale in 1925, the painting has previously been attributed to the 17th century Spanish school. Some scholars are prepared to attribute the painting to Velázquez, though the Prado Museum in Madrid is reserving judgment. The work, which depicts the Virgin Mary being taught to read, will be restored by conservators at Yale.
In October 2011 it was confirmed that a portrait found in the UK in the former collection of the 19th century painter Matthew Shepperson is a previously unknown work by Velázquez. The portrait is of an unidentified man in his fifties or sixties, who could possibly be Juan Mateos, the Master of the Hunt for Velázquez's patron, King Philip IV of Spain. The painting measures 47 x 39cm and will be sold at auction on December 7th, 2011. It is estimated to sell for £2,000,000 - £3,000,000.
Descendants
Velázquez, through his daughter Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco (1619–1658), is an ancestor of the Marquesses of Monteleone, including Enriquetta (Henrietta) Casado de Monteleone (1725–1761) who in 1746 married Heinrich VI, Count Reuss zu Köstritz (1707–1783). Through them are descended a number of European royalty, among them Queen Sofía of SpainQueen Sofía of Spain
Queen Sofía of Spain is the wife of King Juan Carlos I of Spain.-Early life and family:Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark was born in Psychiko, Athens, Greece on 2 November 1938, the eldest child of the King Paul of Greece and his wife, Queen Frederika , a former princess of Hanover...
, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
Beatrix of the Netherlands
Beatrix is the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands comprising the Netherlands, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and Aruba. She is the first daughter of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. She studied law at Leiden University...
, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Carl XVI Gustaf is the reigning King of Sweden since 15 September 1973, succeeding his grandfather King Gustaf VI Adolf because his father had predeceased him...
, King Albert II of Belgium
Albert II of Belgium
Albert II is the current reigning King of the Belgians, a constitutional monarch. He is a member of the royal house "of Belgium"; formerly this house was named Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
, Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein
Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein
Hans-Adam II , is the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein. He is the son of Franz Joseph II, Prince of Liechtenstein and his wife Countess Georgina von Wilczek . He also bears the titles Duke of Troppau and Jägerndorf, Count of Rietberg...
, and Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg OIH is the head of state of Luxembourg. He is the eldest son of Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. His maternal grandparents were King Leopold III of Belgium and Astrid of Sweden...
.
Selected works
Velázquez was not prolific; he is estimated to have produced between only 110 and 120 known canvases. Among these paintings, however, are many widely known and influential works.- Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (Apolo en la Fragua de Vulcano) (1630) – Oil on canvas, 223 x 290 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Christ in the House of Martha and MaryChrist in the House of Martha and Mary (Velázquez)Kitchen Scene in the House of Martha and Mary is a painting from Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, dating to his Seville period. Housed in the National Gallery, London, United Kingdom, it was painted in 1618, shortly after he completed his apprenticeship with Pacheco...
(1618) – Oil on canvas, 63 x 103.5 cm, National Gallery, LondonNational Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media... - Cristo crucificado (1631) – Oil on canvas, 248 x 169 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - DemocritusDemocritusDemocritus was an Ancient Greek philosopher born in Abdera, Thrace, Greece. He was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher and pupil of Leucippus, who formulated an atomic theory for the cosmos....
(c. 1630) – Oil on canvas, 101 x 81 cm, Musée des Beaux-ArtsMusée des Beaux-Arts de RouenThe musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen is an art museum in Rouen, northern France. Founded in 1801 by Napoleon I, its current building was built between 1880 and 1888 and completely renovated in 1994...
, RouenRouenRouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages... - El Triunfo de Baco (Los borrachos)The Triumph of BacchusThe Triumph of Bacchus is a 1629 painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. The painting shows Bacchus surrounded by drunks. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drunks....
(1628–1629) – Oil on canvas, 165 x 225 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Temptation of St. Thomas (1632) – Oil on canvas, 244 x 203 cm, Museum of Orihuela CathedralOrihuela CathedralOrihuela Cathedral is a church of Orihuela, Valencian Community, southern Spain. It was built above a pre-existing Muslim mosque as a simple parish church, and was later converted into a main church by order of King Alfonso X of Castile in 1281...
, Spain - Equestrian portrait of Duke de OlivaresEquestrian portrait of Duke de OlivaresThe Equestrian Portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, finished in 1634. It is housed in the Museo del Prado, Madrid....
(1634) – Oil on canvas, 313 x 239 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Esopo (1639–1640) – Oil on canvas, 179 × 94 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Imposición de la casulla a San IldefonsoSan IldefonsoSan Ildefonso, or La Granja, or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the province of Segovia, Spain, situated some 54 km northwest of Madrid.-History:...
(1623) – Oil on canvas, 165 × 115 cm, Museo de Bellas Artes, SevilleSevilleSeville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level... - Old Woman Frying Eggs (c. 1618) – Oil on canvas, 105 × 119 cm, National GalleryNational Gallery of ScotlandThe National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
, Edinburgh - La reina Isabel de Borbón a caballo (1629) – Oil on canvas, 301 x 314 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Las HilanderasLas Hilanderas (Velázquez)Las Hilanderas is a painting by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, dating from c. 1657 and housed in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, Spain. It was painted for Don Pedro de Arce, huntsman to King Philip IV...
(The Fable of Arachne) (c. 1657) -Oil on canvas, 167 × 252 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Las MeninasLas MeninasLas Meninas is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures...
(1656) - Oil on canvas, 318 × 276 cm - Mars RestingMars (mythology)Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
(1640) - Oil on canvas, 179 × 95 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Menipo (1639–1640) – Oil on canvas, 179 × 94 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - MercuryMercury (mythology)Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
and ArgusArgus PanoptesIn Greek mythology, Argus Panoptes or Argos, guardian of the heifer-nymph Io and son of Arestor, was a primordial giant whose epithet "Panoptes", "all-seeing", led to his being described with multiple, often one hundred, eyes. The epithet Panoptes was applied to the Titan of the Sun, Helios, and...
(1659) – Oil6 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid on canvas, 127 × 248 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Portrait of Count Duke of OlivaresPortrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares (São Paulo)The Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares is a 1624 portrait by Diego Velázquez , the most celebrated painter of the Spanish Golden Age...
(1624) – Oil on canvas, 202 x 107 cm, São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo - Portrait of Duke de Olivares (1635) - Oil on canvas, 67 × 54.5 cm, Hermitage MuseumHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, St. Petersburg - Portrait of Innocent XPortrait of Innocent XThe Portrait of Pope Innocent X is an oil on canvas portrait by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, finished during a trip to Italy around 1650. Many artists and art critics consider it the finest portrait ever created. It is housed in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome...
(c. 1650) - Oil on canvas, 141 x 119 cm, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome - Portrait of Juan de ParejaPortrait of Juan de ParejaThe Portrait of Juan de Pareja is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, dating from around 1650 and currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, United States.-History:...
(1650) - Oil on canvas, 81.3 x 69.9 cm, Metropolitan Museum of ArtMetropolitan Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, New York City - Portrait of Mother Jerónima de la FuenteJerónima de la AsunciónThe Servant of God Mother Jeronima of the Assumption, P.C.C. was the foundress of the first Catholic monastery in Manila and the Far East. Mother Jermonia's monastery became known as the Monastery of Saint Clare in Intramuros, Philippines...
(1620) – Oil on canvas, 79 x 51 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - Rokeby Venus (La Venus del espejo, c. 1648–1651) – Oil on canvas, 122 × 177 cm, National Gallery, LondonNational Gallery, LondonThe National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
- The Surrender of BredaThe Surrender of BredaLa rendición de Breda , also known as El cuadro de las lanzas or Las lanzas, is a painting by Velázquez, painted during the years 1634–35, and inspired while Velázquez was visiting Italy with Ambrosio Spinola, the Italian general who conquered Breda on June 5, 1625. It is considered one of...
(1633–1635) – Oil on canvas, 307 × 367 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - The Adoration of the Magi (1619) – Oil on canvas, 203 × 125 cm, Museo del PradoMuseo del PradoThe Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
, Madrid - The Lady with a Fan, (c. 1638–1639) – Oil on wood, 69 x 51 cm, The Wallace CollectionWallace CollectionThe Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
, London - The LunchThe Lunch (Velázquez)The Lunch is a very early painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, finished c. 1617. It is housed in the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg.The paintings portrays a table covered by a creased cloth, on which two pomegranates and a piece of bread lies...
(c. 1617) – Oil on canvas, 108 x 102 cm, Hermitage MuseumHermitage MuseumThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
, St. Petersburg - The Waterseller of SevilleThe Waterseller of Seville (Velázquez)The Waterseller of Seville is the title of three paintings by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, dating from 1618-1622. It is widely said to be the greatest of all his Seville paintings.-History:The painting exists in three versions...
(c. 1620) – Oil on canvas, 105 × 80 cm, Apsley HouseApsley HouseApsley House, also known as Number One, London, is the former London residence of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic interchange and Wellington Arch...
, London
External links
- Works at Web Gallery of Art
- Diego Velázquez at Artcyclopedia.com
- Velazquez in the "History of Art"
- 202 paintings by Diego Velázquez at www.diegovelazquez.org