The Rokeby Venus Poster Print by Diego Velazquez (24 x 18)

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Brown, Jonathan (2008). Collected Writings on Velázquez, CEEH & Yale University Press, New Haven. ISBN 978-0-300-14493-2. Our first feeling is of being there. We are standing just to the right of the King and Queen, whose reflections we can see in the distant mirror, looking down an austere room in the Alcázar (hung with del Mazo's copies of Rubens) and watching a familiar situation. The Infanta Doña Margarita doesn't want to pose...She is now five years old, and she has had enough. [It is] an enormous picture, so big that it stands on the floor, in which she is going to appear with her parents; and somehow the Infanta must be persuaded. Her ladies-in-waiting, known by the Portuguese name of meninas... are doing their best to cajole her, and have brought her dwarfs, Maribarbola and Nicolasito, to amuse her. But in fact they alarm her almost as much as they alarm us. [41] a b Dambe, Sira (December 2006). "Enslaved sovereign: aesthetics of power in Foucault, Velázquez and Ovid". Journal of Literary Studies. 22 (3–4): 229–256. doi: 10.1080/02564710608530402. S2CID 143516350. Archived from the original on 24 March 2021 . Retrieved 17 March 2021. Velázquez was promoted to increasingly senior administrative positions which left him less time for painting. His son-in-law, Juan Bautista Martinez de Mazo became increasingly involved in helping out by making official copies of his pictures. Yale uncovers Velazquez in basement storage". CBC News. July 3, 2010. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010 . Retrieved December 22, 2010.

Palomino, Antonio (1715–1724). El museo pictorico y escala optica[ The pictorial museum and optical scale] (in Spanish). Vol.2. Madrid . Retrieved 1 September 2017. The painting was referred to in the earliest inventories as La Familia ("The Family"). [12] A detailed description of Las Meninas, which provides the identification of several of the figures, was published by Antonio Palomino ("the Giorgio Vasari of the Spanish Golden Age") in 1724. [3] [13] Examination under infrared light reveals minor pentimenti, that is, there are traces of earlier working that the artist himself later altered. For example, at first Velázquez's own head inclined to his right rather than his left. [14]

Biographical notes

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. [52] Velázquez sailed from Málaga, landed at Genoa, and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying paintings of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese as he went. [53] 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. Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas". ColourLex. Archived from the original on 31 July 2015 . Retrieved 19 March 2021. Campbell, Lorne (1998). The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings. London: National Gallery Catalogues (new series). p.180. ISBN 978-1-85709-171-7. Enriqueta Harris resalta la 'pasión británica' por Velázquez en un simposio en Sevilla" (PDF). El Pais Digital. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 24, 2004 . Retrieved April 9, 2005. Velázquez was not just successful as a painter. From his arrival he had continued to rise up the ranks in the royal household. In 1636 he was made Assistant to the Wardrobe - a position of trust and responsibility.

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. [43] 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. [44] Commissioned by Philip, the painting was hung in his private office at his summer palace. Until 1819 it remained in the royal palace, after which time it went into the collection of the Prado Museum. Much of what we know about the painting is owed to Spanish writer Antonio Palomino, who dedicated an entire section of his book on Spanish artists to Las Meninas. He not only gave the year that the painting was created, but also identified most of the people within the canvas. It's also thanks to Palomino that we know that it shows a room located within the Royal Alcázar. This fortress turned palace was the seat of the Habsburg rulers.

Gower, Ronald Sutherland (1902). Sir David Wilkie. University of California Libraries. London: G. Bell and sons. pp.64–65. The move to the royal court in Madrid allowed Velázquez access to the impressive royal collection. Velázquez studied the Italian paintings, particularly those by Venetian artists such as Titian. When Rubens arrived in Madrid on a diplomatic mission in 1628, the two artists became well acquainted. In 1629, Velázquez obtained permission to visit Italy himself and study Italian painting. He also sought out new paintings to buy on behalf of the King. Hemos instalado maquinas Wellisair las cuales eliminan en un 99.9% Virus y Bacterias incluyendo el Covid-19 según certificación de la universidad de Barcelona. Estas máquinas limpian, purifican y desinfectan el aire y las superficies de contaminantes mediante los métodos de limpieza del aire propios de la naturaleza, por tanto no afectan la salud de las personas.

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. Goldberg, Edward L. "Velázquez in Italy: Painters, Spies and Low Spaniards". The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 3 (September 1992), pp.453–456.

National Gallery painting connections

Moser, Wolf (2011). Diego de Silva Velázquez: Das Werk und der Maler 2 vols. Edition Saint-Georges, Lyon. ISBN 978-3-00-032155-9. 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) [30] 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. The composition is anchored by the two strong diagonals that intersect at about the spot where the Infanta stands..." [49]

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. [82] Although Picasso was concerned that his reinterpretations of Velázquez's painting would be seen merely as copies rather than as unique representations, [ citation needed] the enormous works—the largest he had produced since Guernica (1937)—entered the canon of Spanish art. [83] Velázquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo had succeeded him as usher in 1634, [50] 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.In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens was positioned in Madrid as an emissary from the Infanta Isabella, and Velázquez accompanied him to view 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. [31] Utley, Gertje; Gual, Malén (2008). Olvidando a Velázquez: Las Meninas. Barcelona: Museu Picasso. ISBN 978-84-9850-089-9. 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. [67] He is known for using a rather limited palette, but he mixed the available paints with great skill to achieve varying hues. [68] 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. [69] 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. [70] The change resulted in paintings with greater luminosity and a generally cool, silvery range of color. [71] In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando, the king's favorite court painter, died. [26] 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. [23] A portrait of the king was commissioned, and on August 30, 1623, Philip IV sat for Velázquez. [23] 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. [27] 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.