Portrait of Juan de Pareja

The Portrait of Juan de Pareja is a painting by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez of the enslaved Juan de Pareja, a notable painter in his own right, who was owned by Velázquez at the time the painting was completed. Velázquez painted the portrait in Rome, while traveling in Italy, in 1650. It is the earliest known portrait of a Spanish man of African descent. It was the first painting to sell for more than £1,000,000. At the time of the painting's purchase by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1970 they considered it "among the most important acquisitions in the Museum's history". The painting is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. History In 1649, as court painter to Philip IV of Spain, Diego Velázquez was sent to Rome to purchase works of art for the Alcázar in Madrid. Velázquez brought with him Juan de Pareja, an enslaved man, who served as an assistant in the artist's workshop. During his stay in Rome, Velázquez executed an oil painting of Juan de Pareja, which was displayed as part of a larger exhibition of paintings at the Pantheon on 19 March 1650. According to Antonio Palomino's biography of Velázquez, the painting "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'." Velázquez painted the portrait of Juan de Pareja, who was a Morisco from the city of Antequera in southern Spain, in his workshop, as an exercise in preparation for his official portrait of Pope Innocent X. The Pope, a ruddy-faced man who would be depicted in the bright pink and crimson robes of his office, presented a tricky study in both color and composition. Additionally, since he would be executing a portrait from life, Velázquez would be forced to work quickly while still capturing the essence of Innocent X's character. The Portrait of Juan de Pareja reflects Velázquez's exploration of the difficulties he would encounter in the Pope's portrait. To compensate for a restricted palette of colors, Velázquez adopted a loose, almost impressionistic style of brushwork to bring an intense vitality to his subject.