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.
1618. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK.
c.1618. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.
1618. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London, UK. Read Note.
1618. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London, UK.
1618. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London, UK.
c.1618. Oil on canvas. Szepmuveseti Muzeum, Budapest, Hungary.
c.1618. Oil on canvas. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. Read Note.
c.1618. Chalk drawing. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain.
1619. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1620. Oil on canvas. Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville, Spain. Read Note.
c.1620. Oil on canvas. Wellington Museum, London, UK.
1620. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
1623/24. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
1626-27. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.
c.1628. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1628. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
c.1628-30. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
1628-29. Oil on canvas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France. Read Note.
c.1628. Oil on canvas. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.
1628-29. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Read Note.
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.