The Lunch
The Lunch is a very early painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, finished c. 1617. The work, an oil painting on canvas, is in the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg.
Spanish painter, 1599–1660
The Lunch is a very early painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, finished c. 1617. The work, an oil painting on canvas, is in the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg.
Old Woman Frying Eggs is a genre painting by Diego Velázquez, produced during his Seville period. The date is not precisely known but is thought to be around the turn of 1618 before his definitive move to Madrid in 1623. The painting is in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
The Triumph of Bacchus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drinkers.
The Triumph of Bacchus is one of Velázquez's paintings that Francisco de Goya reproduced as an etching in 1778. This engraving was widely distributed and it is known that even Édouard Manet owned a copy. Legacy →
In the work, Bacchus is represented as a person at the center of a small celebration, but his skin is paler than that of his companions, rendering him more easily recognizable. Unusually, the rest of the group, apart from the figure naked to the waist behind the god, are in the contemporary costume of poor people in 17th-century Spain. Description →
The Triumph of Bacchus received a number of rather grand and elaborate idealized treatments in Renaissance art, of which Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, then in the Spanish royal collection, was an imaginative variant. Usually Bacchus was processing in a chariot drawn by leopards, with a retinue of satyrs and revellers, including his guardian Silenus. Influence →
Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, sometimes referred to as Vulcan's Forge, is an oil painting by Diego de Velázquez completed after his first visit to Italy in 1629. Critics agree that the work should be dated to 1630, the same year as his companion painting Joseph's Tunic. It appears that neither of the two paintings were commissioned by the king, although both became part of the royal collections within a short time.
This work was created in Rome without commission at the request of the painter Peter Paul Rubens who had also visited Spain in 1629. Velázquez painted The Forge of Vulcan and Joseph's Tunic in the house of the Spanish ambassador to the Papal States. History →
Velázquez interpreted the scene as a strictly human event, with common characters, unlike the way that Italian in which painters depicted mythological figures. Vulcan, in this picture, is just a blacksmith, and could even be said to be ugly and not at all God-like. Analysis →
The subject is taken from Roman mythology, specifically from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The painting depicts the moment when the god Apollo, identifiable by the crown of laurel on his head, visits Vulcan. Subject →
Christ Crucified or Christ of Saint Placid is a 1632 painting by Diego Velázquez depicting the Crucifixion of Jesus. It is the most famous religious painting in Spain. It was commissioned by the Benedictine nuns for the Convent of San Plácido in Madrid.
During his first visit to Rome between 1629 and 1631, Velázquez was able to study the paintings of the great italian masters. The influence of his observations on the representation of the nude figure can be seen in Christ Crucified as well as in his paintings Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (1629), Joseph's Tunic (1630) and Mars Resting (1640). History →
The spirituality and mystery of this painting have inspired much religious writing, notably the long poem El Cristo de Velázquez (facsimile of 1st Ed.) by the Spanish poet and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. In St Louis, Missouri, the Basilica of St Louis, King of France has a replica of Christ Crucified above the altar. Legacy →
Christ is shown alone in the cross with both arms drawn a subtle curvature. His wounds are barely shown in his slender body, that is covered by a small white loincloth. Description →
La rendición de Breda is a painting by the Spanish Golden Age painter Diego Velázquez. He painted it during the years 1634 and 1635, inspired by his visit to Italy with Ambrogio Spinola, the Genoese-born Spanish general who conquered Breda on June 5, 1625. The painting depicts the exchange of the key of Breda from the Dutch to the Spanish.
The response to Velazquez's artwork was grand at the very least, with the critical reaction being that The Surrender of Breda was the most impressive Spanish works of art. Reception →
The Surrender of Breda depicts a military victory, the 1624 Siege of Breda, during the Eighty Years War. Background →
One of Velázquez's contemporaries, Peter Paul Rubens, has been cited to be an inspiration for the work connected to The Surrender of Breda. Influence →
The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed with her back facing the viewer, and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
The Rokeby Venus was long held to be one of Velázquez's final works. In 1951, it was found recorded in an inventory of 1 June 1651 from the collection of Gaspar Méndez de Haro, 7th Marquis of Carpio, a close associate of Philip IV of Spain. Provenance →
In part because he was overlooked until the mid-19th century, Velázquez found no followers and was not widely imitated. In particular, his visual and structural innovations in this portrayal of Venus were not developed by other artists until recently, largely owing to the censorship of the work. Legacy →
The Rokeby Venus depicts the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility reclining languidly on her bed, her back to the viewer—in Antiquity, portrayal of Venus from a back view was a common visual and literary erotic motif—and her knees tucked. Description →
Las Hilanderas is a painting by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, in the Museo del Prado of Madrid, Spain. It is also known by the title The Fable of Arachne. Most scholars regard it as a late work by the artist, dating from 1657 to 1658, but some argue that it was done c. 1644-48.
Las Meninas is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting for the way its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and for the uncertain relationship it creates between the viewer and the figures depicted.
The elusiveness of Las Meninas, according to Dawson Carr, "suggests that art, and life, are an illusion". The relationship between illusion and reality were central concerns in Spanish culture during the 17th century, figuring largely in Don Quixote, the best-known work of Spanish Baroque literature. Interpretation →
An almost immediate influence can be seen in the two portraits by del Mazo of subjects depicted in Las Meninas, which in some ways reverse the motif of that painting. Ten years later, in 1666, Mazo painted Infanta Margaret Theresa, who was then 15 and just about to leave Madrid to marry the Holy Roman Emperor. Influence →
In 17th-century Spain, painters rarely enjoyed high social status. Painting was regarded as a craft, not an art such as poetry or music. Court of Philip IV →
Portrait of Innocent X is a c. 1650 oil on canvas painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, depicting Pope Innocent X, head of the Catholic Church from 1644 to 1655. Many artists and art critics consider it the finest portrait ever created. It is housed in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome.
The portrait was painted during Velázquez's second voyage to Italy, between 1649 and 1651. The subject's vestments are of light linen, suggesting that the picture was probably painted during summer, most likely in 1650. History →
The 20th century artist Francis Bacon painted a series of distorted variants, often known as the "Screaming Popes", which total more than forty-five known variants executed during the 1950s and early 1960s. The picture was described by Gilles Deleuze as an example of creative re-interpretation of the classical. Influence →
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