Diego Velázquez, Juan de Pareja, 1650, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The more I think about the Walker Art Gallery’s display National Treasures: Velázquez in Liverpool the more I am impressed. In terms of the way it is curated, it is undoubtedly one of the best exhibitions I have seen this year. I am currently putting together the presentation for my talk about it, which will be this Monday, 17 June at 6pm, and I keep noticing more and more connections between the exhibits: each has its own specific role to play, and is linked carefully to everything around it. I will spend a lot of time looking at the masterpiece that is The Rokeby Venus, before considering the works drawn from the museum’s own collection with which it is exhibited. Not only do they help us to see the painting in a refreshing new light, but they do not get in the way of a traditional interpretation.
Two days later, on Wednesday 19 June at 1pm, you can join me in person, or online, at the Wallace Collection for a free talk entitled Getting carried away with Michelangelo and Ganymede – there are more details on those links. The talk will also be recorded, so you can always ‘catch up’ afterwards if you have booked one of the free tickets. There’s nothing the following week, but the week after, on Monday 1 July, I will give the first of my talks relating to Tate Britain’s encyclopedic Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920. Entitled Up to the Academy, it will consider works from the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries.
After that, I’m afraid I don’t know quite what is happening. Something has come up which means that I might have to reschedule the other two talks about this exhibition, but until things are settled (which I was hoping would be yesterday, but it’s looking like it won’t be until next week) I don’t want to do anything too drastic. For the time being I have suspended ticket sales for the other two talks, and for the bundle of all three. If you have booked any of these, I am sorry, but please don’t worry: I will contact you as soon as I know what I’m doing, and let you know what the situation is. And apologies, of course, in advance, for any inconvenience…
In the meantime – because I’m having one of ‘those’ weeks – I thought it would be a good idea to look at a rather wonderful portrait which I originally used as an illustration for an even earlier post back in June 2020. I had written about about Juan de Pareja’s own painting of The Flight into Egypt (See Picture Of The Day 85), but I wanted to look at Velázquez’ portrait of Pereja in its own right, simply because it is rather wonderful – and also because it gave me a good opportunity to talk about both artist and sitter.
The portrait was painted in 1650 in Rome, when Velázquez was visiting Italy for the second time [and it was possibly there and then that he painted The Rokeby Venus]. He was in Rome at the behest of King Philip IV of Spain, and he had been sent to acquire paintings and sculptures for the Alcázar in Madrid. He was accompanied by Juan de Pareja, who had been in his service since the early 1630s. They sailed from Málaga to Genoa, and then travelled through Milan to Venice. There he bought paintings by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese – all of which seem to have influenced Pareja’s own work, although they were, in any case, already in plentiful supply back in Spain. From there they headed to the Este Court in Modena, and thence to Rome. While there he was commissioned to paint Giovanni Battista Pamphili, better known as Pope Innocent X. ‘In order to get his hand in’ (as Jennifer Montagu phrased it in an article in the Burlington Magazine of November 1983) he practiced by painting ‘a head’ of his assistant. This was the term used by Antonio Palomino, who wrote one of the first biographies of Velázquez, published in 1724. From our point of view this masterful painting is far more than just a head – it is a fully finished portrait – but that was the term they used. Indeed, Palomino went on to say that it was included in an exhibition held in the portico of the Pantheon on 19 March 1650, and that, “it was generally applauded by all the painters from different countries, who said that the other pictures in the show were art but this one alone was ‘truth’.”
The comment speaks for itself in many ways, even if the portrait does include much ‘art’. It is a herald of Velázquez’ late style, which his contemporary Spaniards called the maniera abreviada , the ‘abbreviated style’. When you look closely, there is the most remarkable freedom in the handling of the paint, however detailed it may appear from a distance.
All of the details are there, we know how every item of clothing fits, where and how it is attached – and yet it is nothing but a mass of paint. Velázquez’ style had been developing a greater freedom ever since his earliest days of minutely detailed precision (see POTD 20), but added to that we might be seeing a way of making a virtue out of necessity. You don’t always get long with a Pope, and Velázquez needed to be sure that he would be able to paint him quickly, and from life, rather than relying on a pre-existing portrait (a very common practice at the time for anything ‘official’) – hence the need to practice on Pareja. The challenges were very different, but even here he might have been rehearsing.
Apparently the Pope had quite a high, reddish, complexion – but was also to be shown wearing his scarlet biretta and mozzetta – the hat and cape – while seated on a red throne against a red curtain. Although completely different in appearance, Pareja was also portrayed with a limited palette, but this time of mid- to dark-browns. It is a far subtler portrait, as a result, and I think a far more beautiful one, however brilliant Innocent X may appear – although of course I’m more than happy for you to disagree!
The gentle highlights on the forehead, nose and cheeks give us a real sense of form, while a softness around the mouth and eyes – and especially the double catch-lights that make the eyes seem so moist – create a sense of inner sadness, which may be projection on my part. Pareja may have been very happy at this point.
He was born in Antequera, not so far from Málaga, in 1606, just three years before the Moors were expelled. His mother, Zulema, was mixed race, and in part of African descent, while his father (after whom Juan was named) was a white Spaniard. Pareja came to Madrid in the early 1630s, probably entering Velázquez’ service soon after the latter returned from his first visit to Italy in January 1631. I say he entered ‘his service’, but it’s not that simple. Pareja was Velázquez’ slave, Velázquez ‘owned’ him, an idea which I still find both astonishing and appalling.
It would have been in Velázquez’ service that he must have learnt how to paint. However, Palomino says that the master wouldn’t allow him to do so because of his status, adding that in the Classical world only free men were allowed access to such sophisticated practices. He goes on to say that Pareja did paint in secret nevertheless, and arranged for one of his own paintings to be in the master’s studio one day when King Philip IV visited. The King was so impressed that he insisted Pareja should be freed, and allowed to practice in his own right. Sadly, this charming story is manifestly not true. A document in the archives in Rome, dated 23 November 1650 – published by Jennifer Montague in the article cited above – is a notarial act granting Pareja his freedom, ‘In view of the good and faithful service the slave has given him and considering that nothing could be more pleasing to the slave than the gift of liberty’ – provided that he stayed in Velázquez’ service for a further four years. This was quite a common clause, apparently, as was the ‘ownership’ of slaves by artists (and, I assume, other members of Spanish society). Francisco Pacheco, Murillo and Alonso Cano all had enslaved assistants, for example.
Pareja’s earliest dated painting is the Rest on the Flight to Egypt – which I mentioned above (POTD 85) – but that was not painted until 1658, four years after his ‘freedom’. It could be that other, earlier paintings have been lost (only ten survive, as far as we know) or it could be that he really didn’t start painting on his own until he was free. But however much he might have relished his liberty, he did not go far, as I said in the previous blog. He continued to work as Velázquez’ assistant until the master died in 1660. He then became the assistant to Juan Bautista del Mazo, Velázquez’ son-in-law, and remained part of that household until his own death in 1670, even though Mazo himself had died three years earlier.
Back in 2020 I finished the post with the sentence ‘I hope to look at another of his paintings tomorrow’ – and indeed I did (see POTD 89 – The Baptism of Christ). More significantly, in 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York staged an exhibition of his work, Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter, with this portrait as the centre piece. I only wish I could have gone. Still, all the paintings are out there in the world somewhere, and who knows, there may yet be more to be identified.
dr richard stemp 