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Portrait of a Spanish Lady
("La Femme a l'Eventail")
By Velazquez (1599-1660)
In the Wallace Collection, London
It is interesting to note in studying the art of Velazquez that his unrivalled reputation in the world of art is founded upon a comparatively small number of works. One critic computes that those known to be in existence number eighty-nine, though he acknowledges that some have disappeared from the royal palaces of Spain, we should not have as many pictures to represent the forty years of the artist's life as Sir Joshua Reynolds was known to produce in a single year.
When Velazquez was in his early twenties King Philip IV. of Spain appointed him Court Painter, and the artist was thus relieved of the necessity of painting religious subjects in order to secure the patronage of the rich Church. He painted altogether some forty portraits of his royal master, and though he necessarily specialised in this class of work, he excelled in landscape and animal pictures, and enriched with his genius every branch of art except marine painting.
Velazquez makes no appeal as the user of a brilliant pigment. He loves the sober tints of grey and silver, although upon occasion he does not disdain the use of reds and pinks. He was essentially a realist, painting from models and not from the imagination, and he rcognised his limitations so thoroughly that he avoided the weaknesses they might otherwise have betrayed him into. In this way he achieved that superb mastery which placed him in the forefront of the world's greatest painters, and has profoundly influenced the work of his successors, notably Corot, Millet, Whistler and Sargent.
The present picture is noteworthy as showing a lady of a type other than that representative of the Court circles. The same model appears in "The Lady in the Mantilla" in the Duke of Devonshire's collection, which very likely served as a preliminary study for this strong expression of his genius.
From the book "Famous Paintings" printed in 1913.
Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
(Firefox users must click again on the large photo to see the very large image.)
Online "Name the Painting"
Diego Velazquez
at Web Museum, Paris
Paintings by Velazquez
extensive display by year at the Web Gallery of Art
Velazquez Biography and Prints
(Spanish version)
Famous Paintings in this Series
M. Bompard
A Prayer to the Madonna
Botticelli
The Madonna and Child
Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones
The Mill
Jean Charles Cazin
Ishmael
John Constable
Boat-Building Near
Flatford Mill
John Crome
On the Skirts of the Forest
Pascal Adolphe Jean
Dagnan-Bouveret
The Blessed Bread
Theophile Emanuel Duverger
Alone
C.W. Furse
Diana of the Uplands
W.H. Gore
"'Listed"
Peter Graham
A Rainy Day
Jean Baptiste Greuze
The Listening Girl
Sir James Guthrie
A Highland Funeral
Frans Hals
A Man With a Glove
In His Hand
Hans Holbein the Younger
The Ambassadors
Henry Holiday
Dante and Beatrice
Sir Edwin Landseer
Suspense
Sir Edwin Landseer
A Naughty Child
H.H. La Thangue
Mowing Bracken
Sir Thomas Lawrence
Caroline of Brunswick,
Queen of George IV.
G.D. Leslie
Sun and Moon Flowers
J. Seymour Lucas
Flirtation
Jean Louis Ernest
Meissonier
The Print Collector
Jean Francois Millet
The Angelus
Jean Francois Millet
Going to Work
Sir William Quiller
Orchardson
The Farmer's Daughter
Ralph Peacock
Ethel
Rembrandt
His Own Portrait
Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Infant Samuel
Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Strawberry Girl
George Romney
The Parson's Daughter
W. Dendy Sadler
A Good Story
W. Dendy Sadler
Friday
William Small
The Last Match
J.M. Swan
On the Alert,
Lioness and Cubs
J.M.W. Turner
Peace: Burial at Sea of the
Body of Sir David Wilkie
J.M.W. Turner
Rain Steam and Speed
The Great Western Railway
Velazquez
Portrait of a Spanish Lady
"La Femme a L'Eventail"
Frederick Walker
The Vagrants
George Frederick Watts
Hope
James McNeill Whistler
My Mother
Anders Zorn
A Fisherman
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Famous Paintings
