Juan de Pareja
1650 · Oil on canvas · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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About this work
- Artist
- Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)
- Year
- 1650
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 81.3 × 69.9 cm
- Collection
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Movement
- Baroque
Juan de Pareja, a man of Moorish descent from Antequera who was enslaved in Velázquez's household and studio for at least two decades, turns to look straight at the viewer with his hand on his hip, a white collar over a dark coat, painted with the loosest, quickest brushwork Velázquez had yet allowed himself. He made the portrait in Rome in 1650, during the trip on which he painted Pope Innocent X, as a public demonstration of what he could do, and it was shown at the Pantheon on 19 March that year; according to the biographer Palomino, painters from every nation said the other pictures were art, but this one was truth. Within months Velázquez signed the papers that freed Pareja by 1654, and Pareja went on to a career as a painter in Madrid. The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought the picture in 1970, the first painting to pass a million pounds at auction.
This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.
Details & materials
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About this design
The Madten promise
An exhibition poster
The same artwork as a gallery exhibition poster — title, artist & date typeset beneath the image on a soft ground.





















