Juan de Pareja
Diego Velázquez (1599 to 1660) · 1650
A man in a grey doublet and a white lace collar turns to look straight at you, his right hand on his hip and his expression composed, watchful and entirely his own. He is Juan de Pareja, a painter of African and Spanish descent who was born enslaved and worked in the studio of Velázquez as his assistant. Velázquez painted him in Rome in 1650, while both men were there so that the master could paint Pope Innocent the Tenth. The portrait was shown publicly at the Pantheon that year, and a contemporary wrote that everything else in the exhibition looked like painting while this looked like truth.
The technique is what the Spanish call painting with air. Look at the collar: from a distance it is crisp lace, but up close it is a few loose strokes of white dragged over grey. The face is modelled with extraordinary economy, the light catching the brow, the cheekbone and the lower lip, while the dark background is barely more than a stain. The eyes are the most carefully finished part, and they carry the whole weight of the man's dignity. There is no hint of servitude in the pose; he stands as a gentleman would.
Eight months after the portrait was painted, Velázquez signed a document granting Pareja his freedom, and Pareja went on to a career as a painter in Madrid. The Met acquired the picture in 1971 for a record price of more than five million dollars, then the most ever paid for a work of art. In 2023 the museum devoted an exhibition to Pareja himself, restoring the sitter's name and career to the story of the painting.
Did You Know? Velázquez is said to have painted this portrait as practice before tackling the pope, and it ended up outshining the papal portrait.
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