Juan de Pareja
Diego Velázquez · 1650
01
Rome. 1650.
Velázquez is here to paint the pope.
First, he paints his assistant.
Juan de Pareja.
02
Pareja looks straight back at you.
A practice piece, the story goes.
Velázquez loosening his hand.
03
The collar is lace. A gentleman's collar.
Up close, it's dragged strokes of white.
The man wearing it was enslaved. Velázquez owned him.
04
March. It hangs at the Pantheon.
That November, Velázquez signs a paper.
Pareja will be free in four years.
05
Free, Pareja paints for himself.
1661. The Calling of Saint Matthew.
He puts himself in it. Looking out.
The whole man.
Uncropped.
“Everything else seemed like painting, but this alone like truth.”
27 November 1970
Christie's, London. Lot 110.
The hammer falls at 2,200,000 guineas.
£2.31 million. A first: a painting past a million.
Wildenstein buys it for the Met.
Diego Velázquez
Spanish · Baroque · 1599 to 1660
Sources · 6