Art Collage JANG: Interesting Art Stories: 78. Portrait of Juan de Pareja, Diego Velázquez

Friday, August 12, 2022

Interesting Art Stories: 78. Portrait of Juan de Pareja, Diego Velázquez

How are you?

Currently, I am introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the title “Interesting Art Stories”.

The 78th story is the “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” by Diego Velázquez.

The “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez of his assistant, Juan de Pareja, a prominent painter, who was enslaved and owned by Velázquez when the painting was completed. Velázquez painted this portrait in Rome during traveling in Italy in 1650, which is the earliest known portrait of a Spanish man of African descent.

Self-portrait, Diego Velázquez (c.1640)

It was also the first painting to sell for more than £1 million, and when the Metropolitan Museum of Art, currently possessing the painting, purchased it in 1970, they considered it "one of the most important collections in the history of the Museum."

In 1649, Diego Velázquez, court painter of Philip IV of Spain, took Juan de Pareja, a slave who worked as his assistant in the artist's studio, when he was sent to Rome to purchase artworks for the Alcázar Palace.

Portrait of Philip IV in Fraga, Diego
Velázquez (c.1644)

During his stay in Rome, Velázquez painted an oil painting of Juan de Pareja, which was displayed in a large-scale painting exhibition at the Pantheon on March 19, 1650. In his studio, Velázquez painted the “Portrait of Juan de Pareja”, a Morisco from the city of Antequera, in southern Spain, as an exercise for the official portrait of Pope Innocent X.

Portrait of Pope Innocent X, Diego
Velázquez (c.1650)

However, the Pope placed demanding orders in both color and composition, and Velázquez, who painted a portrait from life, had to work quickly, capturing the essence of Innocent X. Juan de Pareja was freed by Velázquez in 1654.

For some examples of the painting's impact on popular culture, this portrait inspired the 1965 novel "I, Juan de Pareja” by American writer Elizabeth Borton de Treviño.

"I, Juan de Pareja", Elizabeth Borton de
Treviño (1965)

This painting was reinterpreted by surrealist painter Salvador Dalí in "Portrait of Juan de Pareja, the Assistant to Velázquez" (1960), which is now in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Portrait of Juan de Pareja, the Assistant to Velázquez,
Salvador Dali (1960)

A central theme of an American playwright Ayad Akhtar's 2012 play, “Disgraced”, is a painting of the protagonist, a South Asian Muslim man, painted in the style of the “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” by his white wife.