Between 1649 and 1651, Velázquez traveled to Italy with Juan de Pareja, a man of African descent born in southern Spain who was enslaved in Velázquez’s studio and household for at least two decades. According to an early biography, shortly after arriving in Rome, Velázquez exhibited this portrait, "which was so like him and so lively that, when he sent it by means of Pareja himself to some friends for their criticism, they just stood looking at the portrait in admiration and wonder, not knowing to whom they should speak or who would answer." Within months of completing it, Velázquez signed papers that would liberate Pareja by 1654, paving the way for his own successful career as a painter in Madrid. Enslaved artisanal labor was widespread in the workshops of Spanish painters, sculptors, silversmiths and woodworkers at this time.
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Fig. 1. Juan de Pareja," The Calling of Saint Matthew," 1661 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)
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Fig. 2. Detail of Juan de Pareja's self-portrait in "The Calling of Saint Matthew," 1661 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid)
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Fig. 3. Painting in frame: overall
Fig. 4. Painting in frame: corner
Fig. 5. Painting in frame: angled corner
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Fig. 6. Profile drawing of frame. W 5 3/16 in. 13.7 cm (T. Newbery)
Artwork Details
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Title:Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670)
Artist:Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) (Spanish, Seville 1599–1660 Madrid)
Date:1650
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:32 x 27 1/2 in. (81.3 x 69.9 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Purchase, Fletcher and Rogers Funds, and Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), by exchange, supplemented by gifts from friends of the Museum, 1971
Object Number:1971.86
The Background: Between 1649 and 1651, Velázquez travelled to Italy for the second and last time in his life. The main purpose of the trip was to buy paintings and sculptures for King Philip IV of Spain, and while he was in Rome, the painter also received the prestigious commission to portray Pope Innocent X (the canvas is now in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome). During his two years in Italy Velázquez produced some outstanding portraits of patrons and princes of the Church, including those of Cardinal Camillo Astalli (Hispanic Society, New York), Camillo Massimo (Kingston Lacy, Dorset) and Ferdinando Brandani (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid). The portrait of Juan de Pareja is one of the most important and striking works documented during Velázquez’s second Italian trip. Scholarly consensus increasingly supports the idea that this portrait was an opening salvo to Velázquez’s enormous talent for a Roman public largely unaware of his name or body of work.
Antonio Palomino, one of Velázquez’s biographers, recorded that while in Rome Velázquez "made the portrait of Juan de Pareja, his slave and fine painter, which was so like him and so lively that, when he sent it by means of Pareja himself to some friends for their criticism, they just stood looking at the painted portrait and at the original in awe and wonder, not knowing to whom they should speak or who would answer them. About this portrait (which was half-length and done from life) Andreas Schmidt, a Flemish painter in the Court who was in Rome at the time, used to tell that since for the feast of Saint Joseph it was the custom to decorate the cloister of the Pantheon (where Raphael of Urbino is buried) with famous pictures, both ancient and modern, this portrait was hung there, and it received such universal acclaim that in the opinion of all the painters of different nations everything else looked like painting, this alone like reality" (see Palomino 1724).
Every year, on March 19, the feast of Saint Joseph, the Congregazione dei Virtuosi would organize an exhibition under the portico of the Pantheon in Rome. The Virtuosi were a congregation of artists, established in 1543, that had their headquarters at the Pantheon. Velázquez was a member since at least the beginning of 1650. On February 13 of that year he appeared as one of the official organizers (festaroli) of the yearly feast in honor of Saint Joseph, together with Gregorio del Prete, Giovan Battista Magni, and Jan Miel. As recorded by Palomino, the portrait of Juan de Pareja was Velázquez’s painting on display in 1650 at the Pantheon and probably his first publicly exhibited work in that city.
The Subject: As noted by Palomino, Juan de Pareja was the enslaved assistant of Velázquez. Palomino constructed an engaging but fictitious narrative recounting how Pareja had secretly learned painting—thus going beyond the manual tasks deemed appropriate for an enslaved person—by observing Velázquez. His talents were then discovered by the king, who insisted that he be given his freedom. Unfortunately, documentation that would enable us to construct a clear history about Pareja is sparse, particularly for the first decades of his life before the first document connecting him with Velázquez, which does not date before 1634. From Palomino and several later documents, we know that Pareja was born around 1608 in Antequera, in the province of Malaga, three years before the expulsion of Muslim and formerly Muslim populations from the city. His father, also named Juan, was most likely Spanish, while his mother was most likely an African-descended, enslaved woman living in Antequera. Thus far, attempts to locate his baptismal records in Antequera have been unsuccessful. He may have been purchased, inherited by, or gifted to Velázquez, whose family is known to have owned a number of enslaved servants, one of whom had a daughter who was baptized in 1621. The ownership of enslaved assistants was widespread, given Seville’s importance in the slave trade (around 75–80% were referred to as “black” while the remainder were mostly North African Berbers and “white Turks” as well as a small number of Arabs).[1] Francesco Pacheco, Velázquez’s teacher, enslaved a Turkish man for household tasks, and other leading painters, notably Murillo and Alonso Cano, are documented as having had enslaved assistants. Murillo sold one such enslaved assistant, Juan de Santiago, in 1671, when the man was nineteen or twenty years old. Pareja would have been principally employed in the workshop grinding colors and stretching canvases, particularly in the early years of over two decades in Velázquez’s circle. Confusing evidence of his formative period derives from a document of May 12, 1630 in which a Juan de Pareja—"de oficio pinttor" and a free man—requested permission from the administrative Procurador Mayor of Seville to go to Madrid to study painting with his brother Jusepe. Montagu (1983) has argued that this is likely to be another person of the same name, since when the sitter of Velázquez’s portrait accompanied him to Rome, witnessing documents in 1649 and 1650, he was unquestionably an enslaved person. The name Juan de Pareja was, in fact, relatively common, particularly in Malaga. Pareja certainly was one of a number of individuals listed as present in the marriage papers of Velázquez’s daughter in 1634. In a further document dating from September 28, 1638, Velázquez and Pareja co-signed a power of attorney in Madrid on behalf of Alonso Cano (this document can no longer be traced). As noted, in 1649, Pareja accompanied Velázquez to Italy, where he surely saw a number of major works of art that would be relevant to his own painting during his last decade as an independent painter. Montagu published the 1650 document in which Velázquez granted freedom to Juan de Pareja, which was to go into effect in 1654. This delay of four years was a common formula for freeing an enslaved person, and we should probably resist the temptation to see it as evidence of the artist’s recognition of his assistant’s talents and ambition and the status as a freedman Pareja required to exercise them (guilds did not permit enslaved members). Was Velázquez’s choice of displaying a painting of his enslaved assistant a means of bolstering his own claims to nobility (see Fracchia 2007 and 2012)?
After gaining his freedom in 1654, Pareja seems quickly to have departed the context of Velázquez, who died in 1660, and Velázquez’s son-in-law and emulator, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, who took over his studio. Rather, Pareja situated himself within what was then current in Spanish painting, known as Madrid School painting, which in the 1660s was a combination of Flemish and Northern print sources, including Rubens, with a heavy dose of Venetian paint handling and palette, resulting in somewhat chalky but vibrant paintings often densely packed with figures. The earliest signed and dated work by Pareja, The Flight into Egypt of 1658 (Ringling Museum, Sarasota) already announces his adoption of these trends. During this period he appears to have benefited from being brought into the circle of the architect José Ratés, whose portrait he painted (Museum of Fine Arts, Valencia). In 1661, Pareja completed his most celebrated painting, The Calling of Saint Matthew (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; see fig. 1 above), which includes a self-portrait (fig. 2). The hybrid of contemporary figures and historical subject was not unusual in Spanish painting of the period, and Pareja seems to place himself between a figure identifiable as fellow Madrid School painter José Antolínez (presumably a kind of friendship portrait) and the still unidentified patron, sitting in elaborate attire at the table’s left edge. Fracchia (2012) has noted that in Pareja’s painting he is consciously associated with the Apostle who evangelized in Ethiopia and who the Afro-Hispanic poet Juan Latino (1518?–ca. 1594) turned into a biblical Ethiopian. Of similar scale to The Calling of Saint Matthew but exhibiting still further stylistic development—including a much more dynamic composition and looser paint handling—is Pareja's Baptism of Christ of 1667 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid), which he signed and dated through trompe l’oeil “chiseling” into a rock at lower left, an adamant claim to artistic authority three years before his death.
The Picture's Owners; Copies: The portrait was acquired in 1776 by Sir William Hamilton from Vincenzo Ruffo, 3rd duca di Baranello, in Naples. It had been in the Ruffo family since at least 1734 when it appears in the inventory of Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo’s collection in Rome. From Hamilton it then passed to the Earls of Radnor, from about 1811 to 1970, when it was acquired by The Met.
A slightly smaller copy, now at the Hispanic Society, was previously with the Earls of Carlisle at Castle Howard and has sometimes been thought to be Velázquez’s original; however, it is clearly a highly accomplished early copy of The Met's portrait.
For a detailed contextualization of this painting and outline of Pareja’s life and world, see David Pullins and Vanessa Valdés eds., Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter, New York, 2023.
Xavier F. Salomon 2011; revised by Keith Christiansen 2019; revised by David Pullins 2023
[1] These are the figures given in Luis Méndez Rodríguez, trans. Jeremy Roe, “Slavery and the Guild in Golden Age Painting in Seville,” Art in Translation 7:1 (2015), pp. 123–39. Originally published as “Gremio y esclavitud en la pintura sevillana del Siglo de Oro,” Archivo hispalense: Revista histórica, literaria y artística 84, nos. 256–57 (2001), pp. 243–56.
Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, Rome (by 1704; d. 1753; inv., 1734); Litterio Ruffo, 2nd duca di Baranello, Naples (1753–d. 1772); Vincenzo Ruffo, 3rd duca di Baranello, Naples (1772–76; sold to Hamilton); Sir William Hamilton, Palazzo Sessa, Naples (1776–1801; inv. July 14, 1798, states that this portrait came from the Baranello Collection at Naples); his sale, Christie's, London, March 27–28, 1801, no. 59, for £40.19.0 to Parker); Thomas Lister Parker, Browsholme, Yorkshire (1801–at least 1808; cat., 1808, no. 30); Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor, Longford Castle, Salisbury, Wiltshire (by 1814, but probably acquired by the 2nd Earl on May 1, 1811 for £151.14.05 [see Ref. Radnor 1909]–d. 1828); the Earls of Radnor, Longford Castle (1828–1968; cat., 1909, no. 87); Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 8th Earl of Radnor, Longford Castle (1968–70; sale, Christie's, London, November 27, 1970, no. 110, to Wildenstein for The Met)
Rome. Pantheon. "Congregazione dei Virtuosi," March 19, 1650, no catalogue.
Rome. S. Salvatore in Lauro. "Feast of the Santa Casa di Loreto, 1704," 1704 (as "Quadri di Mons. Ruffo Mro. di Camra di N.S. Il Ritratto da tre pal: rappresentante un Servo che fu serv.re del S.r. Diego Velasquez famoso pitt.e Cosa stupenda").
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," 1873, no. 141 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Winter Exhibition," January 4–March 12, 1904, no. 79 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Exhibition of Spanish Paintings," November 1920–January 1921, no. 69 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. Burlington Fine Arts Club. "Exhibition of Spanish Art," 1928, no. 2 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Exhibition of 17th Century Art in Europe," January 3–March 12, 1938, no. 218 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. National Gallery. "Exhibition of Spanish Paintings," February 11–March 23, 1947, no. 35 (lent by the Earl of Radnor).
London. Christie's. "Christie's Bi-Centenary Exhibition," January 3–21, 1967, no. 42 (lent by The Rt. Hon. the Earl of Radnor, K. G.).
Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. State Hermitage Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," May 22–July 27, 1975, no. 33.
Moscow. State Pushkin Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," August 28–November 2, 1975, no. 33.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions, 1965–1975," December 6, 1975–March 23, 1976, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Velázquez," October 3, 1989–January 7, 1990, no. 32.
Madrid. Museo del Prado. "Velázquez," January 23–March 31, 1990, no. 66.
New York. Frick Collection. "Velázquez in New York Museums," November 16, 1999–January 16, 2000, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Velázquez Rediscovered," November 17, 2009–February 7, 2010, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting," November 4, 2016–March 14, 2017, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter," March 27–July 16, 2023, no cat. number (ill. p. 89 [color]).
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.
Borja Franco Llopis. "Crónica de 'Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic painter'." Archivo Español de Arte 96 (July–September 2023), p. 351.
Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco. "El parnaso español pintoresco laureado." El museo pictórico, y escala óptica. Vol. 3, Madrid, 1724 [1724 ed. reprinted in Fuentes literarias para la historia del arte español, F. J. Sánchez Cantón, ed., vol. 4, Madrid, 1936, pp. 167–68; 1796 ed., pp. 501–2], states that Velázquez painted his enslaved assistant Juan de Pareja to prepare himself for painting Pope Innocent X; cites "Andrés Esmit" [Andreas Schmidt], a Flemish painter in Rome at the time, who described an exhibition of paintings by ancient and modern masters in the rotunda [of the Pantheon] on the Feast of Saint Joseph, in which this portrait excited great admiration: all the painters of different nationalities agreed that whereas all the other works looked like painting, this alone was truth; claims that as a result Velázquez was admitted to the Roman Academy in 1650.
Jacopo Agnelli. Galleria di pitture dell'emo, e rmo principe, signor cardinale Tommaso Ruffo vescovo di Palestrina, e di Ferrara, ecc.: Rime, e prose. Ferrara, 1734, p. 36, lists it and includes a poem.
Quadreria del Card. Tommaso Ruffo secondo l'inventario Conca-Sorbi del 1753. 1753, f. 384r, as "altro ritratto di palmi tre, e mezzo di Diego Velaschi Spagnolo, sc. 50".
Francisco Preciado de la Vega. Letter to Giovanni Battista Ponfredi [Carta a Gio. B. Ponfredi sobre la pintura española]. October 20, 1765 [published in Fuentes literarias para la historia del arte español, F. J. Sánchez Cantón, ed., vol. 5, 1941, Madrid, p. 120], states that the portrait of Juan de Pareja with olive flesh tones, from the hand of Velázquez, was in the collection of the Most Eminent Trajano de Acquaviva (probably not this painting; see Fahy 1971).
Sir William Hamilton. Letter to Charles Greville. March 1776 [translated excerpt in Knight 1990, p. 73; also published in A. Morrison, The Hamilton and Nelson Papers, London, 1893, vol. 1, p. 48, in Morgan Library, NYC], mentions that he is shipping this picture from the Baranello collection to Palazzo Sessa.
Richard Cumberland. Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London, 1782, vol. 2, p. 35, mentions the exhibition at the Pantheon and Velázquez's admission to the academy in Rome.
D. Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez. Diccionario histórico de los más ilustres profesores de las bellas artes en España. Madrid, 1800, vol. 4, p. 50; vol. 5, p. 170.
Frédéric Quilliet. Dictionnaire des peintres espagnols. Paris, 1816, p. 248 [reprinted in Barbara T. Cooper ed., “Juan de Pareja: esclave, peintre, et personnage littéraire. Une anthologie d'écrits du XIXe siècle,” Paris, 2023, p. 5].
W[illiam]. Buchanan. Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution. London, 1824, vol. 2, p. 76, no. 59, quotes the description from Sir William Hamilton's sale catalogue of 1801, noting that the portrait came from the Baranello collection at Naples and was sold to Parkes for 39 guineas.
René in "Peintres espagnols. Don Diego Velasquex de Silva." L'Artiste: journal de la littérature et des beaux-arts no. 9 (1835), p. 231 [reprinted in Barbara T. Cooper ed., “Juan de Pareja: esclave, peintre, et personnage littéraire. Une anthologie d'écrits du XIXe siècle,” Paris, 2023, p. 9].
William Stirling[-Maxwell]. Annals of the Artists of Spain. London, 1848, vol. 2, pp. 642, 710; vol. 3, p. 1403, describes the Radnor portrait as perhaps the one painted as an exercise before Velázquez undertook the portrait of Innocent X.
William Stirling-Maxwell. Velazquez and his Works. London, 1855, pp. 159–60, 252, mentions a lithograph after the painting by Gabriel Rolin.
[Gustav Friedrich] Waagen. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain. London, 1857, p. 361, lists it as picture 147 at Longford Castle.
W. Bürger inHistoire des peintres de toutes les écoles. École espagnole. 1869, p. 2 [reprinted in Barbara T. Cooper ed., “Juan de Pareja: esclave, peintre, et personnage littéraire. Une anthologie d'écrits du XIXe siècle,” Paris, 2023, p. 201].
J. J. A. Bristead. Manuscript catalogue of Spanish paintings. 1870–75, p. 33, as by Velázquez.
Charles B. Curtis. Velazquez and Murillo. London, 1883, p. 75, no. 180, lists the variant at Castle Howard and a doubtful variant at the Stockholm Museum.
Ronald Gower, ed. The Great Historic Galleries of England. Vol. 3, London, 1883, no. 10, ill.
Carl Justi. Diego Velazquez und sein Jahrhundert. Bonn, 1888, pp. 177–80, ill. (engraving), observes that either the Castle Howard or Radnor version must be the work that was exhibited at the Pantheon.
Edwin Stowe. Velazquez. London, 1889, p. 101, mentions that the attribution of the Radnor portrait is "doubted by Waagen".
Walter Armstrong. The Life of Velazquez. London, 1896, first page unpaginated, and pp. 64, 66, believes the Castle Howard picture "has the better claim" to be the work exhibited in Rome.
Claude Phillips. "The Collection of Pictures at Longford Castle. III.—The Spanish and French Pictures." Art-Journal, n.s., (1897), pp. 243–44, ill., calls the Castle Howard picture finer than the Radnor picture, but attributes both to Velázquez.
Hermann Knackfuss. Velazquez. 3rd ed. Bielefeld, 1898, p. 38.
A. de Beruete. Velazquez. Paris, 1898, pp. 117–19, 207, ill. [revised English ed., 1906, pp. 84–85, 94, 152, 159, pl. 59], identifies the Radnor version as the original and states that it was acquired by the 2nd Earl of Radnor in May 1911; calls the version with the Earl of Carlisle [now Hispanic Society, New York], a copy, probably with some retouches by the master.
Jacinto Octavio Picon. Vida y obras de Don Diego Velazquez. Madrid, 1899, pp. 113, 115, 205.
R. A. M. Stevenson. Velasquez. 1900, p. 140.
Élie Faure. Velazquez. Paris, 1903, p. 64.
Walther Gensel. Velazquez: Des Meisters Gemälde. Stuttgart, 1905, p. 148 [English ed., 1913, p. 15], publishes the Castle Howard picture, calling the Radnor portrait a second example.
[A. L. Baldry]. Velasquez. London, [1905], pp. xiii, xxv.
A. de Beruete. Velazquez. Revised translation of 1898 ed. London, 1906, pp. 84–85, 94, 152, 159, pl. 59.
R. A. M. Stevenson. Velasquez. London, 1906, p. 140, calls the Radnor picture the original and the painting from Castle Howard a replica.
Albert F. Calvert and C. Gasquoine Hartley. Velazquez: An Account of His Life and Works. London, 1908, pp. 113–14, 217, no. 170, call the Radnor picture the original and erroneously state that it was in the Guildhall exhbition of 1901.
A. de Beruete y Moret. The School of Madrid. London, 1909, pp. 131–32.
Helen Matilda, Countess of Radnor and William Barclay Squire. Catalogue of the Pictures in the Collection of the Earl of Radnor. London, 1909, pp. 53–55, no. 87, ill., state that the picture was certainly acquired by 1814, and probably acquired by the 2nd Earl on May 1, 1811.
Gustavo Frizzoni. "Intorno al secondo viaggio del Velazquez in Italia." Rassegna d'arte 17 (1917), p. 110, mentions the Castle Howard and Radnor versions as both claiming to be the original.
Isabella Errera. Répertoire des peintures datées. Vol. 1, Brussels, 1920, p. 264, lists the Castle Howard and Radnor versions under the date 1650.
Aureliano de Beruete y Moret. "Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Spanish Paintings at the Royal Academy." Connoisseur 18 (1920), pp. 187–88, ill. (erroneously as portrait of Velázquez by himself, lent by the Fine Art Museum, Valencia).
A. de Beruete de Moret. Spanish Painting. Ed. Geoffrey Holme. London, 1921, pp. 15–16.
Algernon Graves. "Spanish Paintings at Burlington House." International Studio 72 (February 1921), pp. 5–6, ill.
August L. Mayer. Diego Velazquez. Berlin, 1924, pp. 140–43, ill., notes that the Radnor picture might reflect the artist's study of Venetian painting; calls the example with Archer M. Huntington, New York [formerly at Castle Howard] an excellent but not autograph repetition.
Walter Gensel. Velazquez: Des Meisters Gemälde. Ed. Juan Allende-Salazar. Stuttgart, [1925], p. 127, ill.
Arthur A. Schomburg. "Fragmentary Tribute to the Spanish Negro Painters of the School of Sevilla: Juan de Pareja, Sebastian Gomez." Messenger (July 1, 1925), p. 250.
Arthur A. Schomburg. "In Quest of Juan de Pareja." Crisis 34 (July 1927), p. 154.
Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Hispanic Society of America, 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Vol. 2, New York, 1929, pp. 163–64, attributes to Velázquez the picture formerly at Castle Howard and presented to the Hispanic Society, New York, by Archer M. Huntington; calls it sketchier in quality and possibly a study for the Radnor canvas.
August L. Mayer inAllgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 26, Leipzig, 1932, p. 229.
August L. Mayer. Velazquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures and Drawings. London, 1936, p. 83, no. 351, pl. 125.
Alain Locke. Negro Art: Past and Present. Washington, 1936, p. 9.
Tancred Borenius. "Die Ausstellung 'Kunst des 17. Jahrhunderts' in der Royal Academy in London." Pantheon 21 (1938), pp. 40, 42, ill.
Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 34, Leipzig, 1940, pp. 192, 196, calls the "Castle Howard version" an old copy.
Alain Locke. The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Washington, 1940, pp. 137, 206.
Enrique Lafuente. Velazquez. London, 1943, p. 27, no. XCVI, pl. 121.
O. E. Deutsch. "Sir William Hamilton's Picture Gallery." Burlington Magazine 82 (February 1943), p. 41, publishes an extract of a manuscript list of Hamilton's picture gallery, compiled at the end of 1798 by James Cox, which includes a painting by Velázquez: "Portrait of a Man, half-figure, Spanish dress; 3.1 by 2.8 [Palme]".
Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. "Velázquez: New Data on a Group of Portraits." Notes Hispanic 4 (1944), pp. 48–54, 57, ill. (overall and detail), identifies the Radnor portrait as the original and the version in the Hispanic Society as a copy produced in Velázquez's studio, perhaps by Juan de Pareja himself.
An Exhibition of Spanish Paintings. Exh. cat., National Gallery. [London], 1947, p. 21, no. 35, pl. 16.
Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. Velázquez. New York, 1948, pp. 302–3, 309, figs. 195–96 (overall and detail), mentions only the Radnor portrait and calls it Velázquez's original; notes that in a letter dated May 12, 1630, a "Juan de Pareja" wrote to the procurator of Seville stating that he held the office of painter (an office not permitted to slaves) and requested permission to go to Madrid to study painting; concludes, on this basis, that Pareja was Velázquez's studio assistant, not enslaved, as stated by Palomino (1724).
William E. Suida. A Catalogue of Paintings in the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Sarasota, 1949, p. 279, calls the Radnor picture the original and the Castle Howard version a good replica.
Elizabeth du Gué Trapier. The Hispanic Society of America: Velázquez Portraits in the Collection. New York, 1952, pp. 13–14, calls the version in the Hispanic Society a copy, possibly made by Juan de Pareja in Velázquez's studio, and under his direction; suggests their version was the portrait in the collection of Cardinal Trajano de Acquaviva in Rome in the 18th century.
José Ortega y Gasset. Velazquez. New York, 1953, pp. XXXVIII, LXI, no. 45, fig. 45 (color).
A History of the Hispanic Society of America: Museum and Library, 1904–1954. New York, 1954, p. 246, calls it a close replica of the Radnor version, painted in the studio of Velázquez and under his direction.
Bernardino de Pantorba. La vida y la obra de Velázquez: Estudio biográfico y crítico. Madrid, 1955, pp. 49, 142, 177–78, no. 98, fig. 98, mentions copies in the Hispanic Society, the Jules Cheret Museum, Nice, and the Peruvian Embassy, Washington, D. C.; believes our portrait was the one belonging to Trajano d'Acquaviva in Rome.
Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. "Revisiones sexcentistas: Juan de Pareja." Archivo español de arte 30 (1957), pp. 275, 285, pl. 1, calls the Radnor picture the original and the Hispanic Society version an excellent replica.
Kurt Gerstenberg. Diego Velazquez. [Munich], [1957], pp. 146–48, ill.
Enriqueta Harris. "Velázquez en Roma." Archivo español de arte 31 (July–September 1958), pp. 189–91, notes that Velázquez was elected to Rome's Accademia di S. Luca in January 1650, but the annual exhibition at the Pantheon on the feast day of Saint Joseph did not occur until March 19, 1650; thus Palomino's report that the artist's election to the Academy resulted from the impression this portrait created at the Pantheon cannot be correct; notes that these annual exhibitions were actually mounted by the Congregazióne dei Virtuosi and provides contemporary evidence that Velázquez was also a member of this group prior to March 19; states that in every other respect Palomino's description of the circumstances under which this portrait was painted are reliable.
Martin Soria in George Kubler and Martin Soria. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800. Baltimore, 1959, p. 265, calls it firmer and less sketchy than the other portraits Velázquez painted in Rome, which he describes as "Titianesque".
Francis Haskell. "Art Exhibitions in XVII Century Rome." Studi Secenteschi 62 (1960), p. 111, cites Velázquez as the first painter we know of who used the Pantheon exhibitions to draw attention to himself beyond papal and artistic circles; notes that the artist was already a member of the Accademia di S. Luca and of the Congregazione dei Virtuosi when this portrait was exhibited.
José Manuel Pita Andrade. "El itinerario de Velázquez en su segundo viaje a Italia." Goya (July–October 1960), p. 152.
Julián Gállego. "Velázquez, pintor de retratos." Goya (July–October 1960), p. 41, ill.
Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. New York, 1961, p. 97.
Enrique Lafuente Ferrari. "Mundo y estilo en Velázquez." III Centenario de la muerte de Velázquez . . . Madrid, 1961, pp. 38, 40.
Giuseppe Cerulli Irelli. Velazquez e Italia. Madrid, 1961, p. 24, fig. 24.
Julián Gállego. La peinture espagnole. Paris, 1962, p. 154.
Xavier de Salas. Velazquez. London, 1962, p. 13.
José López-Rey. Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre. London, 1963, pp. 97–100, 102, 300, no. 517, pl. 133, observes that it may have been painted at any time between July 10, 1649 and March 19, 1650, when it was shown at the Pantheon; states that the painted surface is folded over the edge of the stretcher at the top, right and bottom; considers it unlikely that the "remarkably fine" Hispanic Society copy was painted by Pareja himself.
Francis Haskell. Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque. New York, 1963, pp. 126, 222, pl. 34, notes that this portrait was previously in the collections of Cardinal Ruffo and was with Sir William Hamilton by 1798, before passing into the collection of Lord Radnor.
José Camón Aznar. Velázquez. Madrid, 1964, vol. 2, pp. 727–29, 739, 753, 1005, ill., attributes the Radnor version to Velázquez and suggests that the Castle Howard picture might be by Pareja.
Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. "Velázquez." Encyclopedia of World Art. Vol. 14, New York, 1967, cols. 716, 724.
Denys Sutton. Diego Velasquez. New York, 1967, p. 79.
José López-Rey. Velázquez' Work and World. London, 1968, pp. 118–19, pl. 140.
José Ortega y Gasset. Velázquez. 3rd ed. Madrid, 1968, pp. 200, 246.
Yoko Kono. "Berasukesu (Velázquez)." Mizue [Betsusatsu] no. 57 (Winter 1969), p. 69, ill.
Brian Fothergill. Sir William Hamilton: Envoy Extraordinary. New York, 1969, pp. 298, 401, 433.
Francis Haskell. "The Benjamin Altman Bequest." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), p. 278.
Luisa Vertova. "Aste." Antichità viva 9 (September–October 1970), pp. 62–63, ill., erroneously as purchased by Wildenstein for the National Gallery, Washington.
Lode Seghers. "Mercado de las artes en el extranjero: Record mundial por Velázquez." Goya (November–December 1970), p. 192, ill.
Everett Fahy. "Juan de Pareja by Diego Velázquez: A History of the Portrait and its Painter." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginated, ill. (x-ray; ill. in color before, during and after treatment, and color detail on cover), supplies detailed provenance, and remarks that Preciado's 1765 essay [see Refs.] is the only evidence that this portrait belonged to Cardinal Acquaviva; suggests that what Preciado saw was a copy.
[Benedict Nicolson]. Editorial: A Velasquez for Export? 113 (February 1971), p. 71.
José López-Rey. Notes on Velázquez' portrait of Juan de Pareja, prepared for Wildenstein. March 1971, pp. 1–5.
Hubert von Sonnenburg. "The Technique and Conservation of the Portrait." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginated, ill. (details of conservation), describes the painting's excellent state of preservation, noting that it has not been relined; observes that the technique is related to 16th–century Venetian practice; explains how the canvas, which had been folded over, was restored to its original dimensions.
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "Juan de Pareja by Diego Velazquez: An Appreciation of the Portrait." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 29, part 2 (June 1971), unpaginaged, ill. (detail).
[Denys Sutton]. "Editorial: The End of an Era." Apollo 93 (February 1971), p. 83, ill.
Frank Davis. "Talking about Sale-Rooms: Splendour and Simplicity." Country Life 149 (February 4, 1971), p. 256, ill.
"Musées et monuments historiques." Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts no. 1233 (October 1971), p. 30.
Walter de Sager. "20 Millionen DM für Velazquez!." Die Kunst und das schöne Heim 1 (January 1971), pp. 57–58, ill.
F. S. "Les ventes publiques: Valeur d'un Velasquez." Connaissance des arts 228 (February 1971), pp. 29, 31, ill.
G. S. Whittet. "Salerooms." Art and Artists 5 (February 1971), p. 45, ill. (detail).
G. W. "The Sale-Room." Apollo 93 (February 1971), p. 152.
Enrique García-Herraiz. "Crónica de Nueva York." Goya (March–April 1972), pp. 323–24, ill.
"États-Unis." Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts no. 1237 (February 1972), p. 84, ill.
Julián Gállego and Frédéric Mégret. La grande histoire de la peinture. Vol. 11, Le XVIIIe siècle en France et en Italie. [Geneva], 1973, p. 33.
John Rewald. "Should Hoving Be De-accessioned?" Art in America 61 (January–February 1973), p. 28.
José Gudiol. Velázquez, 1599–1660. New York, 1974, pp. 266–68, 281, 337, no. 135, figs. 203 and 204 (color and black and white detail) [Spanish ed., Barcelona, 1973].
Anthony M. Clark inThe Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 90, ill.
Thomas Hoving inThe Chase, the Capture: Collecting at the Metropolitan. New York, 1975, pp. 31–40, ill., describes the process of acquiring this portrait.
Madlyn Millner Kahr. Velázquez: The Art of Painting. New York, 1976, pp. xi, 109–10, ill.
Joseph-Emile Muller. Velázquez. London, 1976, pp. 192–93, ill.
David Robertson. Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World. Princeton, 1978, p. 197.
[Denys Sutton]. "Editorial: A Gentleman from New England." Apollo 107 (May 1978), p. 360, records Charles Eliot Norton's reaction to the painting when he saw it at the Royal Academy in 1873.
Godfrey Barker. "Taxation and The Heritage: A National Shame." Connoisseur 198 (July 1978), p. 220, ill. (reversed), notes that the National Gallery, London, requested a grant from the Treasury in the amount of 2 million pounds in order to purchase the picture.
José López-Rey. "Actualité de Vélasquez." L'Oeil 278 (September 1978), p. 34, 36, ill., discusses the powerful impact of this portrait on the viewer.
José López-Rey. Velázquez: The Artist as a Maker, with a Catalogue Raisonné of His Extant Works. Lausanne, 1979, pp. 96, 116–18, 169 n. 188, pp. 468–69, no. 112, ill. between pp. 112–13 (color detail before 1971 cleaning and overall after cleaning), pls. 203 (x-ray) and 204, tentatively incudes Cardinal Trajano de Acquaviva in the provenance.
Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 313, 329, fig. 564 (color).
Robert Fikes Jr. "Juan de Pareja and Sebastian Gomez: Masters of Spanish Baroque Painting." Crisis 87 (February 1980), pp. 50, 52, ill.
A Dealer's Record: Agnew's, 1967–81. London, 1981, pp. 186–91, ill., relates the story of the sale of this painting at Christie's in 1970.
Denys Sutton. "Editorial: Art Treasures on the Move." Apollo 114 (September 1981), p. 146, reviewing "A Dealer's Record: Agnew's 1967–81," mentions Geoffrey Agnew and Evelyn Joll's unsuccessful attempt, at the time of the picture's sale in 1971, to secure it for the National Gallery, Washington.
Allan Braham. El Greco to Goya: The Taste for Spanish Paintings in Britain and Ireland. Exh. cat.London, 1981, p. 44, ill.
Denys Sutton. "Aspects of British Collecting, Part II: VIII, From Rome to Naples." Apollo 116 (December 1982), p. 419, fig. 28.
Edward J. Sullivan and Nina A. Mallory. Painting in Spain 1650–1700 from North American Collections. Exh. cat., Art Museum, Princeton University. Princeton, 1982, p. 99, ill., refer to Juan de Pareja as Velázquez's shop assistant (see Trapier 1948).
Harold E. Wethey. "Spanish Painting of the Late Baroque." Art Journal 42 (Winter 1982), p. 334.
[Denys Sutton]. "Editorial: Sir Walter Armstrong." Apollo 115 (February 1982), p. 74, notes that Armstrong preferred the Castle Howard version of this portrait.
Jennifer Montagu. "Velázquez Marginalia: His Slave Juan de Pareja and His Illegitimate Son Antonio." Burlington Magazine 125 (November 1983), pp. 683–84, states that Pareja was indeed enslaved, as he was liberated by Velázquez in a notarial act of November 23, 1650, preserved in the Archivio di Stato, Rome; notes that this document identifies Pareja as having been born in Antequera, in the diocese of Malaga, not in Seville.
Thomas Hoving research by Susan Colgan. "The Ones That Got Away." Connoisseur 214 (August 1984), pp. 45–47, ill.
Carlo Knight. "La quadreria di Sir William Hamilton a Palazzo Sessa." Napoli nobilissima 24 (January–April 1985), pp. 51, 55, no. 197, ill., publishes an inventory in Hamilton's hand of the contents of Palazzo Sessa, dated July 14, 1798, in which this picture is described as coming from the Baranello Collection at Naples.
Mary Crawford Volk. "Of Connoisseurs and Kings: Velázquez' 'Philip IV' at Fenway Court." Fenway Court (1985), p. 24.
Raoul Ergmann. "L'appel de l'ouest." Connaissance des arts no. 405 (November 1985), pp. 68–69, ill. (detail in color), discusses this portrait in the context of art historical treasures moving West, namely to America.
Jonathan Brown. Velázquez: Painter and Courtier. New Haven, 1986, pp. 201–204, 280, 297–98 nn. 29–31, colorpl. 234.
Jeannine Baticle and Alain Roy. L'age baroque en Espagne et en Europe septentrionale. Geneva, [1986?], p. 118.
Maurice Sérullaz with the collaboration of Christian Pouillon. Velázquez. New York, 1987, p. 100, colorpl. 27.
José Antonio Maravall. Velázquez y el espíritu de la modernidad. Madrid, 1987, pp. 45, 129.
Gridley McKim-Smith, Greta Andersen-Bergdoll, and Richard Newman, with technical photography by Andrew Davidhazy. Examining Velázquez. New Haven, 1988, pp. 59, 77, 142 n. 25, fig. 57, note that "bold. . . variations in paint" [i.e. darker more promenint strokes] occur in the background of this picture.
Mahonri Sharp Young. "Letter from the U.S.A, Santiago: A Golden Legend." Apollo 130 (December 1989), p. 422.
Julián Gállego et al. inVelázquez. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1989, pp. 45–46, 88, 228–35, 238, no. 32, ill. (color, overall and details) [Spanish ed., 1990, pp. 45, 384–91, 396, 430, no. 66, ill. (color, overall and details)], questions Palomino's assertion (1724) that Velázquez painted Pareja as an exercise before he began work on the portrait of Pope Innocent X, noting that the coloring of the two sitters was very different; comments on Pareja's "almost disdainful nobility" and "the somewhat militant temperament," noting that he is "dressed in lordly fashion in [a] rich Flemish lace collar (forbidden in Spain to free men and shunned by Philip IV, who favored austere dress)".
Calvin Tomkins. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. rev., enl. ed. New York, 1989, pp. 362–64, ill. between pp. 320 and 321.
Carlo Knight. Hamilton a Napoli: Cultura, svaghi, civiltà di una grande capitale europea. Naples, 1990, pp. 73, 82, publishes a translated excerpt of Hamilton's letter to Greville in March of 1776.
Nina Ayala Mallory. "La pintura de Velázquez, en Nueva York." Goya (January–February 1990), pp. 233–34, ill., calls it "one of the most brilliant stars" of the exhibition.
Jonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. Washington, 1990, p. 120.
Denys Sutton. "Vélasquez: Magicien du pinceau." L'Oeil 416 (March 1990), pp. 28, 32, ill. (color).
Nigel Glendinning. "Velázquez." Kunstchronik 43 (May 1990), pp. 199–200.
Enriqueta Harris. "Madrid: Velázquez at the Prado." Burlington Magazine 132 (April 1990), p. 288.
Elisa Bermejo. "Crónica: Exposición Velázquez." Archivo español de arte 63 (April–June 1990), p. 389, fig. 6, describes this portrait as the "star" of the Madrid exhibition and as one of Velázquez's most successful portraits.
John Pope-Hennessy. Learning to Look. New York, 1991, p. 235, states that Velázquez commonly folded over his canvases to center a subject, and mentions that the portrait of Cardinal Massimi at Kingston Lacey is treated in exactly the same way; notes that after cleaning the canvas in our portrait was not folded over as it had been, "with the result that Pareja's head is off-center and the effect made by the image is less dynamic than it used to be".
Nina Ayala Mallory. Del Greco a Murillo: La pintura española del Siglo de Oro, 1556–1700. Madrid, 1991, pp. 157–58, ill.
Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi New York. Ed. Nicholas H. J. Hall. New York, 1992, p. 33.
Michel de Grèce. Portrait et séduction. [Paris], 1992, p. 154, ill. (color).
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez. Pintura barroca en España (1600–1750). Madrid, 1992, pp. 228, 230, ill.
Louisine W. Havemeyer. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. Ed. Susan Alyson Stein. 3rd ed. [1st ed. 1930, repr. 1961]. New York, 1993, pp. 97, 320 n. 152.
Nancy Little. "Old Master Copies Continue to Challenge Experts." IFAR Reports 14 (June 1993), pp. 2–4, fig. 2, mentions the copy in the Hispanic Society of America (New York), the Blackett copy (sold at Christie's, London, in 1992), a 20th–century copy in the Radnor collection, and a copy in the Jules Cheret Museum (Nice), which IFAR here dates about 1812.
Juan José Martín González. El artista en la sociedad española del siglo XVII. Madrid, 1993, pp. 199–200, ill.
Gridley McKim-Smith in Gridley McKim-Smith and Richard Newman. Ciencia e historia del arte: Velázquez en el Prado. Madrid, 1993, pp. 108–9 n. 116.
Jeannine Baticle. Velázquez, peintre hidalgo. 2nd ed. [Paris], 1993, pp. 96, 99, ill. (color).
Odile Delenda. Velázquez, peintre religieux. Geneva, 1993, p. 140 n. 21.
Hubert von Sonnenburg. "A Note on the Dimensions of 'Juan de Pareja'." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 26–31, fig. 1 (color), believes the finished canvas remained on its original support for a long time before it was folded over; refutes Pope-Hennessy's (1991) belief that the canvas had been folded over by Velázquez himself in order to center the figure; points out that the dimensions of the copy in the Hispanic Society correspond to those of the original after the canvas was folded, probably when it entered the collection of the earl of Radnor; mentions the copy sold at Christie's in 1992—the only extant copy that matches our painting exactly in size and composition—as evidence that the composition was always intended to be left of center.
Laurent Manoeuvre. Vélasquez, le siècle d'or. Paris, 1994, p. 48–49, ill. (color).
Franz Zelger. Diego Velázquez. Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1994, pp. 78–79, ill.
Pedro Laín Entralgo. "Antropología del retrato." El retrato en el Museo del Prado. Ed. Javier Portús. Madrid, 1994, pp. 48–49, ill. (color).
Susann Waldmann. Der Künstler und sein Bildnis im Spanien des 17. Jahrhunderts: Ein Beitrag zur spanischen Porträtmalerei. Frankfurt, 1995, pp. 154, 216, no. 28, fig. 73, considers it an example of the "pintor noble" type of portrait, like the Velázquez self-portrait (Uffizi, Florence), in which the artist portrays himself with a sword and glove rather than the attributes of his trade.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 158, ill. p. 159.
Kim Sloan in Ian Jenkins and Kim Sloan. Vases & Volcanoes: Sir William Hamilton and His Collection. Exh. cat., British Museum. London, 1996, pp. 76, 84, fig. 36, states that in 1769 Hamilton and Charles Greville seem to have visited the Baranello collection in Naples where they saw this painting, and that five years later he began negotiating for its purchase.
Liudmila Kagané. Diego Velázquez. Bournemouth, 1996, pp. 140, 142, ill. (color).
José López-Rey. Velázquez. Cologne, 1996, vol 1, pp. 147, 172, 176, 180, 183, ill. (color detail); vol. 2, pp. 278–80, no. 112, ill. (color).
Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Leon Golub and Nancy Spero." New York Times (January 5, 1996), p. C5.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez inThe Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. Vol. 32, New York, 1996, p. 131.
Oscar Pfouma with an introduction by Alain Anselin. Le nègre de Velazquez et le miroir de l'histoire: Les héritiers de Juan de Pareja. Paris, 1996, pp. 29–30, ill., cites Pareja's loyalty to Velázquez as one type of response of an enslaved person to his condition.
Wifredo Rincón García. Velázquez. Madrid, 1996, pp. 46, 48–49, ill.
Trinidad de Antonio inVelázquez: El Papa Inocencio X de la Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Roma. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 1996, pp. 48, 50–51, ill.
Joan-Ramon Triadó inArt and Architecture of Spain. Ed. Xavier Barral I Altet. Boston, 1996, pp. 342, 344.
Maurizio Marini. Velázquez. Milan, 1997, pp. 27, 106–7, 162, no. 137, ill. (color, overall and detail).
Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Chuck Close: Sought or Imposed, Limits Can Take Flight." New York Times (July 25, 1997), p. C23.
Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Susan Rothenberg and Bruce Nauman: Two Who Define Today Amble in the Past." New York Times (February 21, 1997), p. C26.
Yves Bottineau. Vélasquez. Paris, 1998, p. 238, fig. 192 (color).
Santiago Alcolea. Velázquez. 2nd ed. Barcelona, 1998, pp. 22, 127, no. 81, fig. 81 (color).
Michael Kimmelman. Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere. New York, 1998, pp. 118–20, 187, 244, ill. [text similar to Kimmelman 1996, 1997].
Jonathan Brown inVelázquez, Rubens y Van Dyck: Pintores cortesanos del siglo XVII. Ed. Jonathan Brown. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, [1999], p. 61.
Jonathan Brown et al. inVelázquez in New York Museums. Ed. Joseph Focarino. Exh. cat., Frick Collection. New York, 1999, pp. 6, 11, 14, 17, 26–27, ill. (color).
Miguel Morán Turina and Isabel Sánchez Quevedo. Velázquez: Catálogo completo. Madrid, 1999, pp. 224–25, no. 104, ill. (color).
Fernando Marías. Velázquez: Pintor y criado del rey. Madrid, 1999, pp. 180, 185, ill. (color).
Antonia Morel d'Arleux. "Origen y vicisitudes de cuatro óleos inéditos que pertenecieron a la Colección Real." Goya (1999), p. 80, suggests that Juan de Pareja and Juan Latino, the subject of a painting entitled "Boy with a Dog" (presumably Colección Real) may be the same person, as they were born in the same year.
Víctor I. Stoichita inVelázquez. Barcelona, 1999, pp. 206–7, 222, 367–81, fig. III/15 (color), notes that a portrait of an enslaved person was unusual in the context of the seventeenth century.
Salvador Salort. "La misión de Velázquez y sus agentes en Roma y Venecia: 1649–1653." Archivo español de arte 72 (October–December 1999), p. 448.
Salvador Salort Pons inVelázquez a Roma; Velázquez e Roma. Ed. Anna Coliva. Exh. cat., Galleria Borghese. Milan, 1999, pp. 60–61, ill.
Hugh Brigstocke inEn torno a Velázquez. Exh. cat., Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias. London, 1999, p. 6.
Kymberly N. Pinder. "Book Reviews: Black Representation and Western Survey Textbooks." Art Bulletin 81 (September 1999), p. 536, notes that in general survey texts the African American is more commonly known as a subject through the works of white artists, as in the our portrait of Juan de Pareja by Velázquez [than through the works of black artists].
Karin Hellwig inVelázquez, Rubens, Lorrain: Malerei am Hof Philipps IV, Museo del Prado. Bonn, 1999, pp. 47, 53.
Miguel Ángel Ramos Sánchez inEn torno a Velázquez. Ed. Miguel Ángel Ramos Sánchez. Madrid, 1999, p. 103, ill.
Hugh Brigstocke. "El descubrimiento del arte español en Gran Bretaña." En torno a Velázquez: Pintura española del Siglo de Oro. Exh. cat., Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, Oviedo. London, 1999, p. 6.
Francis Haskell in "'La Venus del espejo'." Velázquez. Barcelona, 1999, p. 222.
Francisco Calvo Serraller. Velázquez. Barcelona, 1999, p. 92.
Javier Portús. Velázquez. [Madrid], 2000, pp. 52, 56, ill. (color).
Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón. Escritos sobre Velázquez. Pontevedra, 2000, pp. 125, 254–55.
Nancy Grimes. "'Velázquez in New York Museums': The Frick Collection." Art News 99 (2000), p. 161, ill. (color).
Andrea Kirsh and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. New Haven, 2000, p. 262.
Walter Liedtke et al. Vermeer and the Delft School. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 117, compares Carel Fabritius's self-portrait of about 1648–50 (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam) to this picture, calling it the "'Juan de Pareja' of the Netherlands"; notes that these portraits "have in common optical effects achieved through complexly layered touches," which may be explained by the direct and indirect influence of Titian.
Salvador Salort Pons inVelázquez. Exh. cat., Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome. Milan, 2001, pp. 76, 78, ill. (color).
Juan Manuel Martín Robles. "Santiago Alcolea Gil. 'Velázquez. La esencia del tiempo.' Barcelona, 1999." Cuadernos de Arte de la Universidad de Granada no. 32 (2001), p. 373.
Jorge Montoro, ed. Velázquez: El pintor de la luz. Madrid, 2001, pp. 374–75, ill. (color).
Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt inThe Cambridge Companion to Velázquez. Ed. Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt. Cambridge, 2002, p. 2.
Víctor I. Stoichita in "La imagen del hombre de raza negra en el arte y la literatura españolas del sigolo de oro." Herencias indígenas, tradiciones europeas y la mirada europea. Ed. Helga von Kügelgen. Frankfurt am Main, 2002, pp. 275–77, fig. 13.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez. "Velázquez e Italia." Velázquez (1599–1999): Visiones y revisiones. Ed. Alberto Villar Movellán and Antonio Urquízar Herrera. Córdoba, 2002, pp. 40–41, 43.
Amador Schüller Pérez. La patología en la pintura de Velázquez. Madrid, [2002], pp. 12–13, 20, 64, 67.
Salvador Salort Pons in "Fortuna e collezionismo della pittura di Velázquez in Italia." Economia e arte secc. XIII–XVIII. Ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi. Florence, 2002, pp. 908–9, discusses the provenance and exhibition of the portrait during the 18th century.
Salvador Salort Pons. Velázquez en Italia. Madrid, 2002, pp. 110–11, 117, 247–48, 306–9, 474, no. 8, ill. (color), finds the handling and pose similar to the portraits of Tintoretto.
José Antonio de Urbina. "Velázquez y el mercado de la pintura española del siglo XVII." Velázquez (1599–1999): Visiones y revisiones. Ed. Alberto Villar Movellán and Antonio Urquízar Herrera. Córdoba, 2002, pp. 84–85, ill.
Antonio Martínez Ripoll. "Diego Velázquez, hechura de Olivares, y sus simulacros de monarquia." Velázquez (1599–1999): Visiones y revisiones. Ed. Alberto Villar Movellán and Antonio Urquízar Herrera. Córdoba, 2002, pp. 145–46.
Maribel Bandrés Oto. La moda en la pintura: Velázquez usos y costumbres del siglo XVII. Pamplona, 2002, pp. 301–2, claims that Pareja, the son of enslaved people, was born a free man in Seville.
Josette Chanel-Tisseau des Escotais. "Le regard de la périphérie: Les artistes et les intellectuels des îles Canaries face à Velázquez." Velázquez aujourd'hui. Ed. Geneviève Barbé-Coquelin de Lisle. Anglet, France, 2002, p. 275.
Paula Revenga Domínguez. "Velázquez et l'Italie." Velázquez aujourd'hui. Ed. Geneviève Barbé-Coquelin de Lisle. Anglet, France, 2002, p. 121.
Matteo Mancini inCortes del Barroco: de Bernini y Velázquez a Luca Giordano. Ed. Fernando Checa Cremades. Exh. cat., Palacio Real de Madrid and Palacio Real de Aranjuez. Madrid, 2003, p. 147.
Pablo Helguera. "S-Files (Museum Biennial): Museo del Barrio, New York, NY." Art Nexus (April–June 2003), p. 148.
Javier Portús. "Retrato de hombre, el llamado 'Barbero del Papa'" de Diego Velázquez: Memoria del acto de presentación, Madrid, 27 de noviembre de 2003. Madrid, 2003, pp. 6, 12, 14.
Fernando Benito Domenech inMuseu de Belles Arts de València: Obra selecta. Valencia, 2003, pp. 230, 232.
Zahira Véliz. "Signs of Identity in 'Lady with a Fan' by Diego Velázquez: Costume and Likeness Reconsidered." Art Bulletin 86 (March 2004), p. 91, compares the indirect gaze of the sitter in Velazquez's "Lady with a Fan" (Walllace Collection, London) with the direct gaze of Juan de Pareja.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez inThe Spanish Portrait: From El Greco to Picasso. Ed. Javier Portús. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. London, 2004, pp. 171–72, 174, fig. 76 (color), dates it 1649–50; notes that it shows the "slightly brutish vitality of a man of humble origins but conscious of his own worth".
Carmen Fracchia. "(Lack of) Visual Representation of Black Slaves in Spanish Golden Age Painting." Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 10 (June 2004), pp. 24–26, 29–32 n. 5, fig. 2.
Maurizio Marini. Velázquez, consonanze e dissonanze: Marie de Rohan, duchessa di Chevreuse alla corte di Madrid. Venice, 2004, pp. 45, 66, 75 n. 22, ill. p. 47 (color).
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez inVelázquez a Capodimonte. Exh. cat., Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte. Naples, 2005, p. 37, ill. p. 40 (color).
Martin Warnke. Velázquez: Form & Reform. Cologne, 2005, p. 129, fig. 66 (color).
Charlotte Hale. "Dating Velázquez's 'The Supper at Emmaus'." Metropolitan Museum Journal 40 (2005), pp. 70–71, 76, 78 n. 23.
Wolf Moser. Der Fall Velázquez: Antworten. Munich, 2005, pp. 138–39, ill., claims that it was originally a self-portrait by Pareja and that Velázquez overpainted it.
Svetlana Alpers. The Vexations of Art: Velázquez and Others. New Haven, 2005, p. 180, notes that "the pose, though reversed, confers on him [Pareja] the dignity of Raphael's 'Baldassare Castiglione' (Louvre, Paris)".
Pierre Rosenberg. Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. Milan, 2006, pp. 17, 110, fig. 15 (color).
Dawson W. Carr inVelázquez. Exh. cat., National Gallery. London, 2006, pp. 45–46, ill. (color).
Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), p. 37.
Santiago Alcolea i Gil. Velázquez. Barcelona, 2007, pp. 99, 102, fig. 74 (color).
Ignacio Peyró. Velázquez. Madrid, 2007, pp. 48–49, ill. (color).
Javier Portús inVelázquez's Fables: Mythology and Sacred History in the Golden Age. Ed. Javier Portús. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2007, pp. 40, 56.
Carmen Fracchia. "Constructing the Black Slave in Early Modern Spanish Painting." Others and Outcasts in Early Modern Europe: Picturing the Social Margins. Ed. Tom Nichols. Aldershot, England, 2007, pp. 190–91.
James Macdonald. "La valoración de Velázquez en el mercado internacional." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 132, 136, 335, 337.
Luis Méndez Rodríguez. "Esclavos y pintores en la Sevilla de Velázquez." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 211, 371, fig. 76.
Angel Aterido Fernández. "Pintores, negocios y bufones: El entorno de Velázquez en la corte." En torno a Santa Rufina: Velázquez de lo íntimo a lo cortesano. Ed. Benito Navarrete Prieto. [Seville], [2008], pp. 261, 393.
Fernando Checa. Velázquez: The Complete Paintings. [Antwerp], 2008, p. 184, ill. (color).
Salvador Salort Pons. Diego Velázquez: Pintor, 1599–1660. Madrid, 2008, pp. 236, 250, 257, 264, 271, fig. 148 (color), compares it stylistically with the Self-portrait in the Museo de Bellas Artes, San Pío V, Valencia; notes that Pareja is represented with the serenity of a free man and the solemnity of a Roman bust portrait.
Miguel Morán Turina in Antonio A. Palomino. Vida de Don Diego Velázquez de Silva. Madrid, 2008, p. 113 n. 362.
Joan Sureda. The Golden Age of Spain: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. English ed. New York, 2008, pp. 249, 261 [Spanish ed., "La gloria de los siglos de oro," 2006].
Francesco Petrucci. Pittura di ritratto a Roma: il Seicento. Rome, [2008], vol. 1, p. 205, fig. 289; vol. 2, p. 391; vol. 3, pl. 725.
Giles Knox. The Late Paintings of Velázquez: Theorizing Painterly Performance. Farnham, England, 2009, pp. 111, 113, fig. 4.6 (color), discusses the hierarchy of genres and Velázquez's decision to present himself as a portrait rather than a history painter in his second visit to Rome; notes that portraits were seen as one notch above genre painting, since their subjects were so often of noble birth, but in the case of his portrait of Pareja, Velázquez "emphatically removed the nobility of the subject from the equation and thereby asserted the nobility of portraiture as portraiture," a clear challenge to the accepted hierarchy.
Keith Christiansen inPhilippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977–2008. New York, 2009, p. 36.
Everett Fahy inPhilippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977–2008. New York, 2009, p. 33.
Katharine Baetjer inPhilippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977–2008. New York, 2009, p. xi.
Keith Christiansen inVelázquez Rediscovered. New York, 2009, p. 8.
Alan C. Braddock. Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity. Berkeley, 2009, pp. 223–24, 264 n. 20, fig. 87.
Xavier F. Salomon inSalvator Rosa. Exh. cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery. London, 2010, pp. 77–79, 95 n. 32, fig. 40 (color).
Victor Stoichita inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 225–26, 228–29, 232–34, fig. 120 (color).
Paul H. D. Kaplan inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, pp. 183, 366 n. 331.
David Bindman inThe Image of the Black in Western Art. Ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. Vol. 3, part 1, From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Cambridge, Mass., 2010, p. 3.
Lisa Beaven. An Ardent Patron: Cardinal Camillo Massimo and His Antiquarian and Artistic Circle. London, 2010, p. 120, fig. 3.23 (color).
Maria Antoinetta De Angelis. "I dipinti del cardinale Tommaso Ruffo (1663–1753): la quadreria di un alto prelato nella Roma del Settecento." Collezionisti, disegnatori, e pittori dall'Arcadia al Purismo, II. Ed. Elisa Debenedetti. Rome, 2010, pp. 70, 79 n. 142, publishes Ruffo 1753.
Luis Méndez Rodríguez. Esclavos en la pintura sevillana de los siglos de oro. Seville, 2011, pp. 137, 139–40, ill. p. 138 and fig. 26 (color).
Caterina Volpi in"Io vel'avviso perché so che n'haverete gusto": Salvator Rosa e Giovanni Battista Ricciardi attraverso documenti inediti. Rome, 2012, pp. 52, 56, suggests that it influenced Salvator Rosa's self-portraits in the Detroit Institute of Arts and a private collection, England.
Carmen Fracchia. "The Urban Slave in Spain and New Spain." The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem. Ed. Elizabeth McGrath and Jean Michel Massing. London, 2012, pp. 202–3, fig. 7, suggests that in painting an enslaved assistant, "Velázquez may have sought to legitimize his claims to nobility as well as advertising his art in Rome".
Carmen Fracchia. "The Fall into Oblivion of the Works of the Slave Painter Juan de Pareja." Art in Translation 4, no. 2 (2012), pp. 164–65, 170, 172, 178 n. 3, fig. 1 (color).
Francesco Petrucci. Pier Francesco Mola (1612–1666): Materia e colore nella pittura del '600. Rome, 2012, p. 43.
Javier Portús inVelázquez: Las Meninas and the Late Royal Portraits. Ed. Javier Portús. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. London, 2013, pp. 38, 100, fig. 12 (color).
Carmen Fracchia inSlave Portraiture in the Atlantic World. Ed. Agnes Lugo-Ortiz and Angela Rosenthal. Cambridge, 2013, pp. 147–48, 151–53, 160–61, fig. 5.2.
Caterina Volpi. Salvator Rosa (1615–1673): "pittore famoso". Rome, 2014, p. 244, fig. 189.
Eve Straussman-Pflanzer. "L'art baroque aujourd'hui: une réflexion / Baroque Art Today: A Reflection." Aux origines d'un goût: la peinture baroque aux États-Unis / Creating the Taste for Baroque Painting in America. Paris, 2015, pp. 90, 96–97, fig. 1 (color).
Anna Lo Bianco inBarocco a Roma: la meraviglia delle arti. Ed. Maria Grazia Bernardini and Marco Bussagli. Exh. cat., Fondazione Roma Museo. Milan, 2015, p. 140.
Guillaume Kientz. "Velázquez, la gloire du peintre des peintres." Grande galerie: le journal du Louvre no. 31 (March 2015), p. 55.
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 289, no. 238, ill. pp. 232, 289 (color).
Aileen Ribeiro. Clothing Art: The Visual Culture of Fashion, 1600–1914. New Haven, 2016, p. 55, describes Pareja's garments as "rough"; asserts that the collar is not lace but cut-out linen.
Jason Farago. "An Infinite World Captured In a Handful of Portraits." New York Times (January 13, 2017), p. C25, ill. pp. C19, C25 (color, overall and detail).
Jonathan Brown. "A Proposal on Attribution: Jonathan Brown on Velázquez Portraits at the Metropolitan." Art Newspaper. February 24, 2017, ill. (color) [http://theartnewspaper.com/comment/reviews/exhibitions/a-proposal-on-attribution-jonathan-brown-on-vel-zquez-portraits-at-the-metropolitan/ (Feb. 24, 2017)].
Old Masters: Evening Sale. Christie's, London. July 6, 2017, p. 86, fig. 1 (color), under no. 21.
Master Paintings: Evening Sale. Sotheby's, New York. February 1, 2018, pp. 156–57, fig. 1 (color), under no. 48.
Federico Carò, Silvia A. Centeno, and Dorothy Mahon. "Painting with Recycled Materials: On the Morphology of Calcite Pseudomorphs as Evidence of the Use of Wood Ash Residues in Baroque Paintings." Heritage Science 6 (January 25, 2018), figs. 5b (paint cross-sections), 6d–f (BSE images) [https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-018-0166-5].
Martin Gammon. Deaccessioning and Its Discontents: A Critical History. Cambridge, Mass., 2018, pp. xi, 203, 208–10, 212–15, 219, 228, 402 nn. 21, 22, 25, 26, fig. 6.1 (color).
Tomaso Montanari. Velázquez e il ritratto barocco. Turin, 2018, pp. 109, 271, 274, 276, no. 33, figs. 157–58 (color, overall and detail).
Fernando Marías. "'Republicans of Letters and Sciences': Some Velázquez's [sic] Portraits." Velázquez: Anregungen, Vorschläge, Lösungen / Suggestions, Proposals, Solutions. Ed. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden. [Turnhout, Belgium], 2018, p. 47.
Javier Portús. "El mejor Velázquez / The Best Velázquez." Ars Magazine 12 (April–June 2019), pp. 58, 66, 68–69, 151–54 n. 14, ill. pp. 60, 64–65, 68 (color, overall and details, and paint sample).
Dipinti dal secolo XVI al XX. Pandolfini Casa d'Aste, Florence. October 2, 2019, p. 131, under no. 168.
Stephen Lloyd. "Longford Castle: The Treasures and the Collectors." Burlington Magazine 161 (October 2019), p. 885.
Karen Wilkin. "‘A New Look at Old Masters’ Review: In a New Light, Literally." Wall Street Journal (January 9, 2021) [https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-look-at-old-masters-review-in-a-new-light-literally-11610193600].
Jesse McCarthy. Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul?: Essays. New York, 2021, pp. 11–12, 17, ill. p. 12 (detail) and on cover (color detail).
Katharine Baetjer inEuropean Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. South Brisbane, 2021, p. 110, ill. (color).
Linda Wolk-Simon. "In a New Light." Apollo 193 (March 2021), p. 75.
Diane Wolfthal. Household Servants and Slaves: A Visual History, 1300–1700. , New Haven, 2022, pp. 71, 95–98, 108-9, 125, 129, 214, 216, 232 nn. 137, 145, fig. 2.28 (color).
Madeleine L. Haddon inMurillo: From Heaven to Earth. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. Fort Worth, 2022, p. 17, fig. 3 (color).
Amalia Descalzo Lorenzo inThreads of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen. Ed. Emma Cormack and Michele Majer. Exh. cat., Bard Graduate Center Gallery. New York, 2022, p. 127, fig. 5.15 (color), notes that the sitter wears a "valona" lace collar, often seen in portraits of Spanish elite.
Benito Navarrete Prieto inHerrera el Mozo y el Barroco total. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2023, pp. 30–31.
David Pullins inJuan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, pp. 16, 22–23, 75, 87–88, 90, 100, 106, 124–25, 151, 155 n. 65, ill. pp. 89, 91 (color, overall and detail).
David Pullins and Vanessa K. Valdés inJuan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, pp. 10–12.
Vanessa K. Valdés inJuan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter in the Age of Velázquez. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, p. 56.
Jason Farago. "A Familiar Face at The Met, Now in His Own Light." New York Times (April 7, 2023), ill. (color) [https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/arts/design/juan-de-pareja-met-museum-velasquez-painter.html].
Fatema Ahmed. "Time Lapses." Apollo 199 (March 2024), p. 147, fig. 4 (color).
Elizabeth A. Pergam. "The Met's Reinstallation of Its European Paintings and Northern Renaissance Galleries Aims to Set Exhibits in Their Global Context." Burlington Magazine 166 (April 2024), p. 393.
The frame is from northeastern Italy and dates to about 1650 (see figs. 3–6 above). This powerful carved giltwood reverse profile frame is made of pine. Within the sight edge cavetto a row of carved pearling rises to the top edge. Carved in raking knulls and flutes the ornament emanates from central Sansovinesque paterae and terminates in acanthus leaves at the corners. A small cavetto falls back to stylized lotus leaf ornament in the hollow, which relates to Venetian walnut and gilt frames. Twisted ribbon and acanthus leaf completes the back edge. The frame was enlarged slightly adjacent to the corners on the short lengths and regilded. Frames with similar molding profiles are found in the Palazzo Reale, Turin.
Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2016; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files
Attributed to Velázquez (Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) (Spanish, Seville 1599–1660 Madrid)
ca. 1650
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