Diego Velazquez at Artprice. To look at auction records, find Velazquez's works in upcoming auctions, check price levels and indexes for his works, read his biography and view his signature, access the Artprice database.
Diego
Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in 1599 in Seville, the
first child of Juan Rodriguez de Silva and Jeronima Velázquez, members
of the lesser nobility. Almost nothing is known about Diego’s siblings
– five brothers and a sister. Velázquez seems to have started his
apprenticeship with Francisco de Herrera the Elder (c.1590-1654), but a
short while later (in 1611) his father put him with Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644),
who was an artist of modest talent, but a tolerant teacher and a man of
society. Francisco Pacheco had good contacts in the royal court and besides,
intellectuals of the city, poets, scholars, and artists, liked to meet
at his workshop to discuss the subjects of classical antiquity, Raphael,
Michelangelo
and above all Titian, as well
as the theory of art. At this time, Velazquez became familiar with the
school of Caravaggio.
In 1617, Velázquez was accepted into the painters’ guild of St.
Luke in Seville. Membership in this guild was necessary before he could
start his own workshop, employ assistants, and receive commissions from
churches and public institutions. The same year Velázquez married
Juana, daughter of his teacher Pacheco. Within less than three years they
had two daughters, of whom only one, Francisca, survived. The paintings
executed by Velázquez in Seville before 1622 include bodegones (very
popular genre of kitchen or tavern scenes, in which food and drink plays
the main part) and his first portraits and religious compositions: Old
Woman Frying Eggs, Three Men
at Table, The Waterseller in
Seville, Mother Jerónima
de la Fuente, The Adoration
of the Magi. In The Adoration of the Magi the
main characters are thought to be portraits: the young king is a self-portrait
of the artist, the kneeling king behind him – Pacheco, and Baby Jesus and
the Virgin Mary – Pacheco’s daughter and Velázquez’ wife, Juana.
In 1622, Velázquez visited Madrid for the first time to see its
art treasures, and to make useful contacts; then he went to Toledo to see
works by El Greco and other
painters of that city, including Pedro de Orrente (1580-1645) and Juan
Sanchez Cotan (1561-1627). In the spring of 1623, Velázquez was
summoned to court by the powerful Prime Minister, Count-Duke of Olivares,
and received his first commission for a portrait of Philip IV. The success
of this picture brought the artist an appointment as court painter and
the privilege of becoming the only artist permitted to paint the king in
the future. In 1628, Peter Paul Rubens
came to the court in Madrid on diplomatic business. Velázquez often
visited him at work. Actually he was the only Spanish painter to be honored
with these personal conversations. It was Rubens who persuaded Velázquez
to go to Italy.
During his first journey to Italy in 1629-30, Velázquez visited
Genoa, Venice (where he saw the work of Titian, who effected him more strongly
than any other artist), Florence, and Rome, where he stayed for almost
a year. He copied old masters, but also painted large compositions of his
own including The Forge of Vulcan
and Joseph’s Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob.
In 1834-35, Velázquez was working on the decoration of the new palace
of Buen Retino. One of his major works intended for this setting, together
with several equestrian portraits, is The
Surrender of Breda, part of a cycle of twelve battle pictures
by different painters. The besieged fortress town of Breda in North Brabant
surrendered to the Spanish general Spinola after a staunch resistance of
12 months. The victorious general had granted honorable terms to the captured
garrison. The ceremony of the delivery of the keys is the subject of Velasquez’s
painting. The work was soon popularly renamed The Lances,
because of the verticals which seemed to express the peaceful halt of the
army at the moment of surrender. It has been considered the best historical
work in West European painting.
In 1636, the king appointed his court painter “Assistant to the Wardrobe”
(without the corresponding salary); in 1643 the king promoted Velázquez
to the post of Chamberlain of his private chambers (although still without
a regular salary), later he was made assistant to the superintendent of
special building projects. In the next few years Velázquez’ art
approached its peak in such pictures as Venus
at her Mirror and The Fable
of Arachne.
During his second visit to Rome (1649-1651) Velázquez, among other
pictures, painted the famous portrait of Pope
Innocent X, which the pope himself declared to be ‘too truthful’.
On his return to Madrid he was appointed Supreme court marshal, his obligations
not connected with painting increased, but he was able now to enlarge his
workshop, employing many assistants and pupils (none of whom, however,
were of very great artistic merit).
Velasquez’s career ended with his most significant work Las
Meninas. The painting is a multiple portrait of the royal family
and court. The principal figure with all the power of her mischievous charm,
is the little Infanta Margarita, who has burst into Velasquez’s studio,
followed by her ladies, dwarfs and dogs, in a flurry of skirts, cloaks
and ribbons, while he was intent on painting the king and queen, whose
only images are visible, reflected in the mirror hanging on the wall in
the background, where two large mythological paintings, one by Rubens,
the other by Jordaens, are also hanging.
The great master died in the palace in Madrid on August 6, 1660.
Bibliography:
Velázquez by T. Kaptereva. Moscow. 1961.
Paintings by Velázquez by V. Kemenev. Moscow. 1969.
Paintings by Velázquez in Soviet Museums. Leningrad.
1977.
Painting of Western Europe. XVII century. by E. Rotenberg. Moscow.
Iskusstvo. 1989.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Velazquez
in Soviet Museums: Analysis and Interpretation of the Paintings in the
Context of His Oeuvre by Vladimir Semenovich Kemenov Control
Data Arts, 1979.
Velazquez:
Painter and Courtier by Jonathan Brown. Yale Univ Pr, 1988.
Velazquez:
Catalogue Raisonne: Painter of Painters: Werkverzeichnis (Jumbo)
by Jose Lopez-Rey (Editor). TASCHEN America Llc, 1999.
The
Cambridge Companion to Velazquez (Cambridge Companions to the History of
Art) by Suzanne L. Stratton. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Velazquez's
Las Meninas (Masterpieces of Western Painting) by Diego Velazquez,
Susanne L. Stratton-Pruitt. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Velazquez
in Seville by David Davies, Enriqueta Harris, Michael Clarke.
Yale University Press, 1996.
Venus
at Her Mirror: Velazquez and the Art of Nude Painting by Andreas
Prater. Prestel, 2002.
Manet/Velazquez:
The French Taste for Spanish Painting by Gary Tinterow, Genevieve
Lacambre, Deborah L. Roldan. Yale University Press, 2003.<>