Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez[a] (baptized June 6, 1599  –

Diego Velázquez
August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King
Philip IV and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of
the contemporary Baroque period. He began to paint in a precise tenebrist
style, later developing a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork. In
addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural
significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family and
commoners, culminating in his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

Velázquez's artwork became a model for 19th-century realist and

impressionist painters. In the 20th century, artists such as Pablo Picasso,
Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon paid tribute to Velázquez by re-
interpreting some of his most iconic images.

Contents Self-portrait, c.1640

Early life Born Diego Rodríguez de

Silva y Velázquez

To Madrid (early period)

baptized June 6,
Italian period 1599

Return to Madrid (middle period) Seville, Andalucia,

Portraiture
Spain
Second visit to Italy
Died August 6, 1660
Return to Spain and later career (aged 61)

Las Meninas Madrid, Spain

Final years
Nationality Spanish
Style and technique Known for Painting
Legacy Notable work The Surrender of
Modern recreations of classics Breda (1634–35)

Recent rediscoveries of Velázquez originals Rokeby Venus

Descendants (1647–51)

Popular culture Portrait of Innocent

See also X (1650)
Las Meninas (1656)

Notes
Las Hilanderas (c.
References 1657)
Sources List of works
Further reading Movement Baroque
External links

Early life
Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain, the first child of Juan Rodriguez de Silva, a notary, and Jerónima
Velázquez. He was baptized at the church of St. Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599.[5] The baptism most
likely occurred a few days or weeks after his birth. His paternal grandparents, Diogo da Silva and Maria
Rodrigues, were Portuguese and had moved to Seville decades earlier. When
Velázquez was offered knighthood in 1658, he claimed descent from the lesser
nobility in order to qualify; in fact, however, his grandparents were tradespeople,
and possibly Jewish conversos.[6][7][8][9]

Raised in modest circumstances, he showed an early gift for art, and was
apprenticed to Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville. An early-18th-
century biographer, Antonio Palomino, said Velázquez studied for a short time
under Francisco de Herrera before beginning his apprenticeship under Pacheco,
but this is undocumented. A contract signed on September 17, 1611, formalized a
six-year apprenticeship with Pacheco backdated to December 1610,[10] and it has
been suggested that Herrera may have substituted for a traveling Pacheco between
Birthplace of Velázquez in
December 1610 and September 1611.[11]
Seville
Though considered a dull and undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes
expressed a simple, direct realism although his work remained essentially
Mannerist.[12] As a teacher, he was highly learned and encouraged his students' intellectual development. In
Pacheco's school, Velázquez studied the classics, was trained in proportion and perspective, and witnessed the
trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.[13]

On April 23, 1618, Velázquez married Juana Pacheco (June 1, 1602 – August
10, 1660), the daughter of his teacher. She had two daughters. 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.[14]

Velázquez's earliest works are bodegones (kitchen scenes with prominent

still-life). He was one of the first Spanish artists to paint such scenes, and
his Old Woman Frying Eggs (1618) demonstrates the young artist's unusual
skill in realistic depiction.[15] The realism and dramatic lighting of this work
Vieja friendo huevos (1618, English:
may have been influenced by Caravaggio's work—which Velázquez could
Old Woman Frying Eggs). National
have seen second-hand, in copies—and by the polychrome sculpture in
Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Sevillian churches.[16] Two of his bodegones, Kitchen Scene with Christ in
the House of Martha (1618) and Kitchen Scene with Christ at Emmaus (c.
1618), feature religious scenes in the background, painted in a way that
creates ambiguity as to whether the religious scene is a painting on the wall, a representation of the thoughts of
the kitchen maid in the foreground, or an actual incident seen through a window.[17][18] The Virgin of the
Immaculate Conception (1618–19) follows a formula used by Pacheco, but replaces the idealized facial type and
smoothly finished surfaces of his teacher with the face of a local girl and varied brushwork.[19] His other
religious works include The Adoration of the Magi (1619) and Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of
Patmos (1618–19), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism.

Also from this period are the portrait of Sor Jerónima de la Fuente (1620) – Velázquez's first full-length
portrait[20] – and the genre The Water Seller of Seville (1618–1622). The Water Seller of Seville has been
termed "the peak of Velázquez's bodegones" and is admired for its virtuoso rendering of volumes and textures as
well as for its enigmatic gravitas.[21]

To Madrid (early period)

Velázquez had established his reputation in Seville by the early 1620s. He traveled to Madrid in April 1622, with
letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, chaplain to the King. Velázquez was not allowed to paint the new
king, Philip IV, but portrayed the poet Luis de Góngora at the request of Pacheco.[22] The portrait showed
Góngora crowned with a laurel wreath, which Velázquez later painted over.[23] He returned to Seville in January
1623 and remained there until August.[24]
 In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando, the king's favorite court painter,
died.[25] Velázquez received a command to come to the court from Gaspar de
Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful minister of Philip IV. He was
offered 50 ducats (175 g of gold) to defray his expenses, and he was accompanied
by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his home and sat for a
portrait, which, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace.[22] A portrait of
the king was commissioned, and on August 30, 1623, Philip IV sat for
Velázquez.[22] The portrait pleased the king, and 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.[26]
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.

Velázquez secured admission to the royal

service with a salary of 20 ducats per month,
lodgings and payment for the pictures he might
paint. His portrait of Philip was exhibited on
Philip IV in Brown and
the steps of San Felipe and received with
Silver, 1632
enthusiasm. It is now lost (as is the portrait of
Fonseca).[27] 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 El Triunfo de Baco or Los Borrachos
that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II, who exercised a 1629 (English: The Triumph of
considerable influence on the Spanish school. Velázquez depicts Philip Bacchus/The Drunks)
wearing the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the
neck. The golilla replaced the earlier court fashion of elaborate ruffed
collars as part of Philip's dress reform laws during a period of economic
crisis.[28]

The Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I) arrived at the court of Spain in

1623. Records indicate that he sat for Velázquez, but the picture is now
lost.[27]

In 1627, Philip set a competition for the best painters of Spain with the
subject to be the expulsion of the Moors. Velázquez won. Recorded
descriptions of his painting (destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734)[29] say
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.
Portrait of the Infanta Maria
In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens was positioned in Madrid as an Theresa, Philip IV's daughter with
emissary from the Infanta Isabella, and Velázquez accompanied him to view Elisabeth of France
the Titians at the Escorial. Rubens, who demonstrated his brilliance as
painter and courtier during the seven months of the diplomatic mission, had
a high opinion of Velázquez but had no significant influence on his painting. He did, however, galvanize
Velázquez's desire to see Italy and the works of the great Italian masters.[30]

In 1629, Velázquez received 100 ducats for the picture of Bacchus (The Triumph of Bacchus), also called Los
Borrachos (The Drunks), a painting of a group of men in contemporary dress paying homage to a half-naked
ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. Velázquez's first mythological painting,[31] it has been
interpreted variously as a depiction of a theatrical performance, as a parody, or as a symbolic representation of
peasants asking the god of wine to give them relief from their sorrows.[32] The style shows the naturalism of
Velázquez's early works slightly touched by the influence of Titian and Rubens.[33]
Italian period
In 1629, Velázquez was given permission to spend a year and a half in Italy. Though this first visit is recognized
as a crucial chapter in the development of his style—and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip
IV sponsored his trip—few details and specifics are known of what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was
perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting.

He traveled to Venice, Ferrara, Cento, Loreto, Bologna, and Rome.[17] In 1630 he visited Naples to paint the
portrait of Maria Anna of Spain, and there he probably met Ribera.[17] The major works from his first Italian
period are Joseph's Bloody Coat brought to Jacob (1629–30) and Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (1630), both of
which reveal his ambition to rival the Italians as a history painter in the grand manner.[34] The two
compositions of several nearly life-sized figures have similar dimensions, and may have been conceived as
pendants—the biblical scene depicting a deception, and the mythological scene depicting the revelation of a
deception.[35] As he had done in The Triumph of Bacchus, Velázquez presented his characters as contemporary
people whose gestures and facial expressions were those of everyday life.[36] Following the example of Bolognese
painters such as Guido Reni, Velázquez painted Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan on canvas prepared with a light
gray ground rather than the dark reddish ground of all his earlier works. The change resulted in a greater
luminosity than he had previously achieved, and he made the use of light-gray grounds his regular practice.[35]

Return to Madrid (middle period)

Velázquez returned to Madrid in January 1631.[17] That year he completed

the first of his many portraits of the young prince, beginning with Prince
Balthasar Charles with a Dwarf (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts).[37] ln
portraits such as Equestrian portrait of prince Balthasar Charles (1635),
Velázquez depicts the prince looking dignified and lordly, or in the dress of a
field marshal on his prancing steed. In one version, 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.[38]

To decorate the king's new palace, the Palacio del Buen Retiro, Velázquez La rendición de Breda (1634–1635)
painted equestrian portraits of the royal family.[17] In Philip IV on was inspired by Velázquez's first
Horseback (1634–35), the king is represented in profile in an image of visit to Italy, in which he
imperturbable majesty, demonstrating expert horsemanship by executing accompanied Ambrogio Spinola,
an effortless levade.[39] The large The Surrender of Breda (1634–35), also who conquered the Dutch city of
painted for the Palacio, is Velázquez's only extant painting depicting Breda a few years prior. It depicts a
contemporary history.[39] Its symbolic treatment of a Spanish military transfer of the key to the city from
victory over the Dutch eschews the rhetoric of conquest and superiority that the Dutch to the Spanish army
is typical in such scenes, in which a general on horseback looks down on his during the Siege of Breda. It is
vanquished, kneeling opponent. Instead, Velázquez shows the Spanish considered one of the best of
general standing before his Dutch counterpart as an equal, and extending to Velázquez's paintings.
him a hand of consolation.[40]

The impassive, saturnine face of the influential minister Olivares is familiar to us from the many portraits
painted by Velázquez. Two are notable: one is 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; in the other, The
Count-Duke of Olivares on Horseback (c. 1635), he is flatteringly represented as a field marshal during action.
In these portraits, Velázquez well repaid the debt of gratitude that he owed to the patron who had first brought
him to the king's attention.[41]

The sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés modeled a statue on one of Velázquez's equestrian portraits of the king
(painted in 1636; now lost) which was cast in bronze by the Florentine sculptor Pietro Tacca and now stands in
the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid.[42] Velázquez was in close attendance to Philip, and accompanied him to Aragon
in 1644, where the artist painted a portrait of the monarch in the costume as he reviewed his troops in Fraga.[43]
Velázquez's paintings of Aesop and Menippus (both c. 1636–1638) portray ancient writers in the guise of
portraits of beggars.[17] Mars Resting (c. 1638) is both a depiction of a mythological figure and a portrait of a
weary-looking, middle-aged man posing as Mars.[44] The model is painted with attention to his individuality,
while his unkempt, oversized mustache is a faintly comic incongruity.[45] The equivocal image has been
interpreted in various ways: Javier Portús describes it as a "reflection on reality, representation, and the artistic
vision", while Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez says it "has also been seen as a melancholy meditation on the arms of
Spain in decline".[17]

Had it not been for his royal appointment, which enabled Velázquez to escape the censorship of the Inquisition,
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 first known female nude painted by a Spanish artist,[17] and the only
surviving female nude by Velázquez.

Portraiture

Besides the many portraits of Philip by Velázquez—thirty-four by one count[46]—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, whom
Velázquez first depicted at about two years of age. 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, whom he
depicted sympathetically and with respect for their individuality, as in The Jester
Don Diego de Acedo (1644), whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink-bottle
and pen by his side show him to be a wise and well-educated man.[47] Pablo de
Valladolid (1635), a buffoon evidently acting a part, and The Buffoon of Coria
(1639) belong to this middle period. Lady from court, c. 1635

As court painter, Velázquez had fewer commissions for religious works than any of
his contemporaries.[48] Christ Crucified (1632), painted for the Convent of San
Plácido in Madrid, depicts Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs
on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face, visually
reinforcing the idea of death.[48] The figure is presented alone before a dark
background.

Velázquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo had succeeded him as
usher in 1634,[49] 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 the mission of procuring paintings and
sculpture for the royal collection. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and
Velázquez was commissioned once again to proceed to Italy to make purchases.[50]

Portrait of Pablo de
Second visit to Italy Valladolid, 1635, a court
fool of Philip IV
When he set out in 1649, he was accompanied by his assistant Juan de Pareja who
at this point in time was a slave and who had been trained in painting by
Velázquez.[51] Velázquez sailed from Málaga, landed at Genoa, and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying
paintings of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese as he went.[52] 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 it would be seen unfavorably by the Pope; in fact Innocent was pleased with
the work, and hung it in his official visitor's waiting room.
Portrait of Pope Innocent X,
1650 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 Accademia di San Luca. 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. In November 1650, Juan de Pareja was freed
by Velázquez.[53]

To this period also belong two small landscape paintings both titled View of the
Garden of the Villa Medici. As landscapes apparently painted directly from nature,
they were exceptional for their time, and reveal Velázquez's close study of light at Portrait of Juan de Pareja
different times of day.[54] (c. 1650)

As part of his mission to procure decorations for the Room of Mirrors at the Royal
Alcazar of Madrid, Velázquez commissioned Matteo Bonuccelli to cast twelve bronze copies of the Medici lions.
The copies are now in the Royal Palace of Madrid and the Museo del Prado.[55]

During his time in Rome, Velázquez fathered a natural son, Antonio, whom he is not known ever to have
seen.[56]

Return to Spain and later career

From February 1650, Philip repeatedly sought Velázquez's return to Spain.[56] Accordingly, after visiting Naples
—where he saw his old friend Jose Ribera—and Venice, Velázquez 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.

Elisabeth of France had died in 1644, and the king had married Mariana of Austria, whom Velázquez now
painted in many attitudes. In 1652 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.[57] Yet far from indicating
any decline, his works of this period are amongst the highest examples of his style.[58]

Las Meninas

One of the infantas, Margaret Theresa, the eldest daughter of the new queen, appears to be the subject of Las
Meninas (1656, English: The Maids of Honour), Velázquez's magnum opus. Created four years before his death,
it serves as an outstanding example of European baroque art. Luca Giordano, a contemporary Italian painter,
referred to it as the "theology of painting",[59] and in the eighteenth century the Englishman Thomas Lawrence
cited it as the "philosophy of art". However, it is unclear as to who or what is the true subject of the picture.[60]
Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The king and queen are seen reflected in a mirror on the
back wall, but the source of the reflection is a mystery: are the royal pair
standing in the viewer's space, or does the mirror reflect the painting on
which Velázquez is working? Dale Brown says Velázquez may have
conceived the faded image of the king and queen on the back wall as a
foreshadowing of the fall of the Spanish Empire that was to gain momentum
following Philip's death.

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.

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. Las Meninas (1656)
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.

Final years

There were essentially only two patrons of art in Spain—the church and the
art-loving king and court. Bartolomé Esteban 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 a good salary and pension.

One of his final works was Las hilanderas (The Spinners), painted circa
1657, a depiction of Ovid's Fable of Arachne.[17] The tapestry in the
background is based on Titian's The Rape of Europa, or, more probably, the
copy that Rubens painted in Madrid.[61] 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, Detail of Las Meninas (Velázquez's
gray and black. self-portrait)

Velázquez's final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works
and in the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress[62] the painter's personal style reached its high-point:
shimmering spots of color on wide painting surfaces produce an almost impressionistic effect – the viewer must
stand at a suitable distance to get the impression of complete, three-dimensional spatiality.

His only surviving portrait of the delicate and sickly Prince Felipe Prospero[63] is remarkable for its combination
of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog with a subtle sense of gloom. The hope that was placed at
that time in the sole heir to the Spanish crown is reflected in the depiction: fresh red and white stand in contrast
to late autumnal, morbid colors. A small dog with wide eyes looks at the viewer as if questioningly, and the
largely pale background hints at a gloomy fate: the little prince was barely four years old when he died. 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. This church was
destroyed by the French around 1809, so his place of interment is now
unknown.[64]

There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding

Portrait of the eight-year-old Infanta
between Velázquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after the
Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress
death of King Philip, that they were finally settled.
(1659)

Style and technique

It is canonical to divide Velázquez's career by his two visits to Italy. He 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.

Although acquainted with all the Italian schools and a friend of the foremost painters of his day, Velázquez was
strong enough to withstand external influences and work out for himself the development of his own nature and
his own principles of art. He rejected the pomp that characterized the portraiture of other European courts, and
instead brought an even greater reserve to the understated formula for Habsburg portraiture established by
Titian, Antonio Mor, and Alonso Sánchez Coello.[65] He is known for using a rather limited palette, but he mixed
the available paints with great skill to achieve varying hues.[66] His pigments were not significantly different
from those of his contemporaries and he mainly employed azurite, smalt, vermilion, red lake, lead-tin-yellow
and ochres.[67] His early works were painted on canvases prepared with a red-brown ground. He adopted the
use of light-gray grounds during his first trip to Italy, and continued using them for the rest of his life.[68] The
change resulted in paintings with greater luminosity and a generally cool, silvery range of color.[69]

Few drawings are securely attributed to Velázquez.[70] Although preparatory drawings for some of his paintings
exist, his method was to paint directly from life, and x-rays of his paintings reveal that he frequently made
changes in his composition as a painting progressed.[70]

Legacy
Velázquez was not prolific; he is estimated to have produced between only 110 and 120 known canvases.[71] He
produced no etchings or engravings, and only a few drawings are attributed to him.[72]

Velázquez is the most influential figure in the history of Spanish portraiture.[73] Although he had few immediate
followers, Spanish court painters such as his son-in-law Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo and Juan Carreño de
Miranda took inspiration from his work.[73] Mazo closely mimicked his style and many paintings and copies by
Mazo were formerly attributed to Velázquez.[74] Velázquez's reputation languished in the eighteenth century,
when Spanish court portraiture was dominated by artists of foreign birth and training. Towards the end of the
century, his importance was increasingly recognized by intellectuals close to the Spanish court—an essay
published In 1781 by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos said of Velázquez that "when he died, the glory of Painting
in Spain died with him."[75] In 1778, Goya made a set of etchings after paintings by Velázquez, as part of a
project by the Count of Floridablanca to produce prints of paintings in the Royal Collection.[76] Goya's free
copies reveal a searching engagement with the older master's work, which remained a model for Goya for the
rest of his career.[77]
Velázquez's work was little known outside of Spain until the nineteenth century.[74] 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.

Velázquez is often cited as a key influence on the art of Édouard Manet, who is often considered the bridge
between realism and impressionism. Calling Velázquez the "painter of painters",[69] Manet admired the
immediacy and vivid brushwork of Velázquez's work, and built upon Velázquez's motifs in his own art.[78] In the
late nineteenth century, artists such as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent were strongly
influenced by Velázquez.[17]

Modern recreations of classics

The respect with which twentieth-century painters regard Velázquez's work attests to its continuing importance.
Pablo Picasso paid homage to Velázquez in 1957 when he recreated Las Meninas in 44 variations, in his
characteristic style.[79] 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—obtained a position of importance in the canon of Spanish art.

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".[80] He created several expressionist variations of this piece in the 1950s; however, Bacon's
paintings presented a more gruesome image of Innocent. One such famous variation, entitled Figure with Meat
(1954), shows the pope between two halves of a bisected cow.

Recent rediscoveries of Velázquez originals

In 2009, the Portrait of a Man 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 Velázquez 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.[81]

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.[82][83]

In October 2011 it was confirmed by art historian Dr. Peter Cherry of Trinity College Dublin through x-ray
analysis 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.[84] The
painting measures 47 x 39 cm and was sold at auction on December 7, 2011, for £3,000,000.[85]

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 King Felipe VI of Spain through his mother Sophia of Greece and Denmark,[86] King
Willem-Alexander 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.[87]

Popular culture
Velázquez has been portrayed by Julián Villagrán in a Spanish fantasy television series El ministerio del tiempo.
Velázquez in a recurring character in the series.[88]

See also
List of works by Diego Velázquez

Notes
a. British English: /vɪˈlæskwɪz/,[1] American English: /vəˈlɑːskeɪs, -k(w)ɛz, -kəs, -kɛs/,[1][2][3][4] Spanish: [ˈdjeɣo βe
ˈlaθkeθ].

References
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University Press.
2. "Velázquez" (http://dictionary.com/browse/velazquez). Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
3. "Velázquez" (https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Vel%C3%A1zquez). The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
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HarperCollins. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
5. Carr et al. 2006, p. 26.
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11. Harris 1982, p. 9.
12. Carr et al. 2006, p. 28.
13. Carr et al. 2006, p. 14.
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60. Carr et al. 2006, p. 48.
61. Bird, Wendy. "The Bobbin and the Distaff" (http://apollo-magazine.co.uk/november-2007/319986/the-bobbin-
and-the-distaff.thtml) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110811150919/http://apollo-magazine.co.uk/n
ovember-2007/319986/the-bobbin-and-the-distaff.thtml) 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine, Apollo, 2007-
11-01. Retrieved on May 28, 2009.
62. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien "Infantin Margarita Teresa (1651–1673) in blauem Kleid | Diego Rodríguez
de Silva y Velázquez | 1659 | Inv. No.: GG_2130" (http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/images/500/GG_2130_HP.jp
g) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20131101011349/http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/images/500/GG_213
0_HP.jpg) 2013-11-01 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on January 27, 2014.
63. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien "Infant Philipp Prosper (1657–1661) | Diego Rodríguez de Silva y
Velázquez | 1659 | Inv. No.: GG_319" (http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/images/500/GG_319_HP.jpg) Archived (h
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20141026115652/http://bilddatenbank.khm.at/images/500/GG_319_HP.jpg)
2014-10-26 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on January 27, 2014.
64. Goodman, Al (September 7, 1999). "ARTS ABROAD; A Furor for Velazquez: His Art but Also His Bones" (htt
ps://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/07/arts/arts-abroad-a-furor-for-velazquez-his-art-but-also-his-bones.html).
The New York Times.
65. Carr et al. 2006, p. 30.
66. McKim-Smith et al. 1988.
67. Diego Velázquez (http://colourlex.com/project/diego-velazquez/), ColourLex
68. Carr et al. 2006, pp. 71, 78.
69. Carr et al. 2006, p. 79.
70. McKim-Smith, Gridley. (December 1979), "On Velázquez's Working Method". The Art Bulletin. 61 (4): 589–
603.
71. Vogel, Carol (September 10, 2009). "An Old Spanish Master Emerges From Grime" (https://www.nytimes.co
m/2009/09/10/arts/design/10velazquez.html). The New York Times. Retrieved September 11, 2009.
"Jonathan Brown, this country's leading Velázquez expert ... "Velázquez was a painter who measured out
his genius in thimblefuls." His output was so small that, depending on who's counting, Mr. Brown estimates,
there are only 110 to 120 known canvases by the artist."
72. Harris 1982, p. 178.
73. Portús 2004, p. 57.
74. Harris 1982, p. 183.
75. Portús 2004, p. 200.
76. Portús 2004, p. 201.
77. Portús 2004, pp. 204–207.
78. Schjeldahl, Peter (November 10, 2002). "The Spanish Lesson: Manet's gift from Velázquez" (https://www.ne
wyorker.com/magazine/2002/11/18/the-spanish-lesson). The New Yorker. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
79. Harris 1982, p. 177.
80. Arya, Rina (2009). "Painting the Pope: An Analysis of Francis Bacon's Study After Velázquez's Portrait of
Innocent X". Literature and Theology, 23 (1), 33–50.
81. http://www.metmuseum.org/Special/se_event.asp?OccurrenceId=%7B97C73240-8088-439F-890E-
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sement). The Guardian. UK. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
83. "Yale uncovers Velazquez in basement storage" (https://web.archive.org/web/20100706010545/http://www.c
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oard-sent-to-auction-revealed-to-be-pound-3million-velzquez.do). London Evening Standard. Archived from
the original (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24002861-portrait-in-hoard-sent-to-auction-reveal
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85. "Rediscovered Velazquez painting sold for £3m at auction" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfords
hire-16065909). BBC News. 7 December 2011. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
86. "Relationship between Queen Sofia of Spain and Velazquez" (http://europeandynasties.com/relationship_bet
ween_queen_sofia_of_spain_and_velazquez.htm). Europeandynasties.com. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
87. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20080516081331/http://worldroots.com/brigitte/famous/v/velas
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16. Retrieved 2009-07-19.
88. "Julián Villagrán es Diego de Velázquez en la serie 'El Ministerio del Tiempo' " (https://www.rtve.es/televisio
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Sources
Asturias, Miguel Angel, and P. M. Bardi (1969). L'opera completa di Velázquez. Milano: Rizzoli.
OCLC 991877516 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/991877516).
Carr, Dawson W., Xavier Bray, and Diego Velázquez (2006). Velázquez. London: National Gallery.
ISBN 1857093038.
Harris, Enriqueta (1982). Velazquez. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0801415268.
McKim-Smith, G., Andersen-Bergdoll, G., Newman, R. (1988). Examining Velazquez. Yale University Press.
ISBN 0300036159.
Ortega y Gasset, José (1953). Velazquez. New York: Random House. OCLC 989292513 (https://www.world
cat.org/oclc/989292513).
Portús, Javier (2004). The Spanish Portrait from El Greco to Picasso [exposition, Museo nacional del Prado,
20 october 2004-6 february 2005]. London: Scala. ISBN 185759374X.

Further reading
Brown, Dale (1969). The World of Velázquez: 1599–1660. New York: Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-8094-0252-1.
Brown, Johnathan (1986) Velázquez: Painter and Courtier Yale University Press, New Haven, ISBN 0-300-
03466-0 ;
Brown, Jonathan (1978) Images and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Spanish Painting Princeton University
Press, Princeton, New Jersey, ISBN 0-691-03941-0;
Brown, Johnathan (2008) Collected writings on Velázquez, CEEH & Yale University Press, New Haven,
ISBN 978-0-300-14493-2.
Calvo Serraller, Francisco (1999). Velázquez. Madrid: Electa. ISBN 84-8156-203-3.
Davies, David and Enriqueta Harris (1996) Velázquez in Seville National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh,
ISBN 0-300-06949-9;
Domínguez Ortiz, A.; Gállego, J. & Pérez Sánchez, A.E. (1989). Velázquez (http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.or
g/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/63259/rec/2). New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ISBN 9780810939066.
Elizabeth McGrath and Jean Michel Massing The Slave in European Art The Warburg Institute 2012.
"Enriqueta Harris resalta la 'pasión británica' por Velázquez en un simposio en Sevilla" (https://web.archive.
org/web/20041024132313/http://www.bib.ub.es/velazquez/1varti1.pdf) (PDF). El Pais Digital. Archived from
the original (http://www.bib.ub.es/velazquez/1varti1.pdf) (PDF) on October 24, 2004. Retrieved April 9, 2005.
Erenkrantz, Justin R. "The Variations on Past Masters (http://www.erenkrantz.com/Words/TheMaskAndThe
Mirror.shtml)". The Mask and the Mirror. Accessed on April 10, 2005.
Goldberg, Edward L. "Velázquez in Italy: Painters, Spies and Low Spaniards". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74, No.
3 (Sep., 1992), pp. 453–456.
Moser, Wolf (2011) Diego de Silva Velázquez: Das Werk und der Maler 2 Vols. Edition Saint-Georges, Lyon,
ISBN 978-3-00-032155-9
Pacheco, Francisco and Antonio Palomino (2018) "Lives of Velázquez", Getty Publications ISBN 978-1-
60606-5884
Passuth, László : Más perenne que el bronce – Velázquez y la corte de Felipe IV (Título original: A
harmadik udvarmester) / Noguer y Caralt Editores, 2000
Prater, Andreas (2007) Venus ante el espejo, CEEH, ISBN 978-84-936060-0-8.
Salort-Pons, Salvador, "Velázquez en Italia", Fundación de Apoyo a la História del Arte Hispanico, Madrid
2002,ISBN 84-932891-1-6
 "Velázquez, Diego" (1995). Enciclopedia Hispánica. Barcelona: Encyclopædia Britannica Publishers.
ISBN 1-56409-007-8.
Wolf, Norbert (1998) Diego Velázquez, 1599–1660: the face of Spain Taschen, Köln, ISBN 3-8228-6511-7.

External links
46 artworks by or after Diego Velázquez (https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/actor:velazquez-diego-1
5991660) at the Art UK site
Velázquez works (http://www.wga.hu/index1.html) at the Web Gallery of Art
Velázquez (http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/velazquez_diego.html) at Artcyclopedia.com
202 paintings by Diego Velázquez (http://www.diegovelazquez.org/) at DiegoVelazquez.org
Diego Velázquez (http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/diego-velazquez) at WikiPaintings.org
Diego Velazquez's Online Exhibition (https://web.archive.org/web/20180906125028/https://owlstand.com/#/e
xhibitions/6ad2f894-70a2-4654-ab26-3f3c0aebd075) at Owlstand.com
Diego Velázquez (http://colourlex.com/project/diego-velazquez/), Collection of resources and illustrated
pigment analyses. ColourLex.

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