Las Meninas

The Infanta Margaret Theresa (1651–73), in mourning dress for her father in 1666, by Juan del Mazo. The background figures include her young brother Charles II and the dwarf Maribarbola, also in Las Meninas. She left Spain for her marriage in Vienna the same year.[6]

In 17th-century Spain, painters rarely enjoyed high social status. Painting was regarded as a craft, not an art such as poetry or music.[7] Nonetheless, Velázquez worked his way up through the ranks of the court of Philip IV, and in February 1651 was appointed palace chamberlain (aposentador mayor del palacio). The post brought him status and material reward, but its duties made heavy demands on his time. During the remaining eight years of his life, he painted only a few works, mostly portraits of the royal family.[8] When he painted Las Meninas, he had been with the royal household for 33 years.

Philip IV's first wife, Elizabeth of France, died in 1644, and their only son, Balthasar Charles, died two years later. Lacking an heir, Philip married Mariana of Austria in 1649,[9] and Margaret Theresa (1651–1673) was their first child, and their only one at the time of the painting. Subsequently, she had a short-lived brother Philip Prospero (1657–1661), and then Charles (1661–1700) arrived, who succeeded to the throne as Charles II at the age of three. Velázquez painted portraits of Mariana and her children,[8] and although Philip himself resisted being portrayed in his old age he did allow Velázquez to include him in Las Meninas. In the early 1650s he gave Velázquez the Pieza Principal ("main room") of the late Balthasar Charles's living quarters, by then serving as the palace museum, to use as his studio. It is here that Las Meninas is set. Philip had his own chair in the studio and would often sit and watch Velázquez at work. Although constrained by rigid etiquette, the art-loving king seems to have had a close relationship with the painter. After Velázquez's death, Philip wrote "I am crushed" in the margin of a memorandum on the choice of his successor.[10]

During the 1640s and 1650s, Velázquez served as both court painter and curator of Philip IV's expanding collection of European art. He seems to have been given an unusual degree of freedom in the role. He supervised the decoration and interior design of the rooms holding the most valued paintings, adding mirrors, statues and tapestries. He was also responsible for the sourcing, attribution, hanging and inventory of many of the Spanish king's paintings. By the early 1650s, Velázquez was widely respected in Spain as a connoisseur. Much of the collection of the Prado today—including works by Titian, Raphael, and Rubens—were acquired and assembled under Velázquez's curatorship.[11]

Detail showing Philip IV's daughter, the Infanta Margaret Theresa. Most of her left cheek was repainted after being damaged in the fire of 1734.

The painting was referred to in the earliest inventories as La Familia ("The Family").[12] A detailed description of Las Meninas, which provides the identification of several of the figures, was published by Antonio Palomino ("the Giorgio Vasari of the Spanish Golden Age") in 1724.[3][13] Examination under infrared light reveals minor pentimenti, that is, there are traces of earlier working that the artist himself later altered. For example, at first Velázquez's own head inclined to his right rather than his left.[14]

The painting has been cut down on both the left and right sides.[15] It was damaged in the fire that destroyed the Alcázar in 1734, and was restored by court painter Juan García de Miranda (1677–1749). The left cheek of the Infanta was almost completely repainted to compensate for a substantial loss of pigment.[16] After its rescue from the fire, the painting was inventoried as part of the royal collection in 1747–48, and the Infanta was misidentified as Maria Theresa, Margaret Theresa's older half-sister, an error that was repeated when the painting was inventoried at the new Madrid Royal Palace in 1772.[17] A 1794 inventory reverted to a version of the earlier title, The Family of Philip IV, which was repeated in the records of 1814. The painting entered the collection of the Museo del Prado on its foundation in 1819.[16] In 1843, the Prado catalogue listed the work for the first time as Las Meninas.[17]

In recent years, the picture has suffered a loss of texture and hue. Due to exposure to pollution and crowds of visitors, the once-vivid contrasts between blue and white pigments in the costumes of the meninas have faded.[16] It was last cleaned in 1984 under the supervision of the American conservator John Brealey, to remove a "yellow veil" of dust that had gathered since the previous restoration in the 19th century. The cleaning provoked, according to the art historian Federico Zeri, "furious protests, not because the picture had been damaged in any way, but because it looked different".[18][19] However, in the opinion of López-Rey, the "restoration was impeccable".[17] Due to its size, importance, and value, the painting is not lent out for exhibition.[lower-alpha 2]

A thorough technical investigation including a pigment analysis of Las Meninas was conducted around 1981 in Museo Prado.[22] The analysis revealed the usual pigments of the baroque period frequently used by Velázquez in his other paintings. The main pigments used for this painting were lead white, azurite (for the skirt of the kneeling menina), vermilion and red lake, ochres and carbon blacks.[23]

Key to the people represented: see text

Las Meninas is set in Velázquez's studio in Philip IV's Alcázar palace in Madrid.[24] The high-ceilinged room is presented, in the words of Silvio Gaggi, as "a simple box that could be divided into a perspective grid with a single vanishing point".[25] In the centre of the foreground stands the Infanta Margaret Theresa (1). The five-year-old infanta, who later married Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, was at this point Philip and Mariana's only surviving child.[lower-alpha 3] She is attended by two ladies-in-waiting, or meninas: doña Isabel de Velasco (2), who is poised to curtsy to the princess, and doña María Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor (3), who kneels before Margaret Theresa, offering her a drink from a red cup, or búcaro, that she holds on a golden tray.[26] To the right of the Infanta are two dwarfs: the achondroplastic German, Mari Bárbola (4),[26] and the Italian, Nicolás Pertusato (5), who playfully tries to rouse a sleepy mastiff with his foot. The dog is thought to be descended from two mastiffs from Lyme Hall in Cheshire, given to Philip III in 1604 by James I of England.[27] Behind them stands doña Marcela de Ulloa (6), the princess's chaperone, dressed in mourning and talking to an unidentified bodyguard (or guardadamas) (7).[26]

Detail showing Don José Nieto Velázquez at the door in the background of the painting

To the rear and at right stands Don José Nieto Velázquez (8)—the queen's chamberlain during the 1650s, and head of the royal tapestry works—who may have been a relative of the artist. Nieto is shown pausing, with his right knee bent and his feet on different steps. As the art critic Harriet Stone observes, it is uncertain whether he is "coming or going".[28] He is rendered in silhouette and appears to hold open a curtain on a short flight of stairs, with an unclear wall or space behind. Both this backlight and the open doorway reveal space behind: in the words of the art historian Analisa Leppanen, they lure "our eyes inescapably into the depths".[29] The royal couple's reflection pushes in the opposite direction, forward into the picture space. The vanishing point of the perspective is in the doorway, as can be shown by extending the line of the meeting of wall and ceiling on the right. Nieto is seen only by the king and queen, who share the viewer's point of view, and not by the figures in the foreground. In the footnotes of Joel Snyder's article, the author recognizes that Nieto is the queen's attendant and was required to be at hand to open and close doors for her. Snyder suggests that Nieto appears in the doorway so that the king and queen might depart. In the context of the painting, Snyder argues that the scene is the end of the royal couple's sitting for Velázquez and they are preparing to exit, explaining that is "why the menina to the right of the Infanta begins to curtsy".[30]

Velázquez himself (9) is pictured to the left of the scene, looking outward past a large canvas supported by an easel.[31] On his chest is the red cross of the Order of Santiago, which he did not receive until 1659, three years after the painting was completed. According to Palomino, Philip ordered this to be added after Velázquez's death, "and some say that his Majesty himself painted it".[32] From the painter's belt hang the symbolic keys of his court offices.[33]

A mirror on the back wall reflects the upper bodies and heads of two figures identified from other paintings, and by Palomino, as King Philip IV (10) and Queen Mariana (11). The most common assumption is that the reflection shows the couple in the pose they are holding for Velázquez as he paints them, while their daughter watches; and that the painting therefore shows their view of the scene.

Detail of the mirror hung on the back wall, showing the reflected images of Philip IV and his wife, Mariana of Austria

Of the nine figures depicted, five are looking directly out at the royal couple or the viewer. Their glances, along with the king and queen's reflection, affirm the royal couple's presence outside the painted space.[28] Alternatively, art historians H. W. Janson and Joel Snyder suggest that the image of the king and queen is a reflection from Velázquez's canvas, the front of which is obscured from the viewer.[34][35] Other writers say the canvas Velázquez is painting is unusually large for a portrait by Velázquez, and is about the same size as Las Meninas. Las Meninas contains the only known double portrait of the royal couple painted by Velázquez.[36]

The point of view of the picture is approximately that of the royal couple, though this has been widely debated. Many critics suppose that the scene is viewed by the king and queen as they pose for a double portrait, while the Infanta and her companions are present only to make the process more enjoyable.[37] Ernst Gombrich suggested that the picture might have been the sitters' idea:

"Perhaps the princess was brought into the royal presence to relieve the boredom of the sitting and the King or the Queen remarked to Velazquez that here was a worthy subject for his brush. The words spoken by the sovereign are always treated as a command and so we may owe this masterpiece to a passing wish which only Velazquez was able to turn into reality." [38]

No single theory, however, has found universal agreement.[39] Leo Steinberg suggests that the King and Queen are to the left of the viewer and the reflection in the mirror is that of the canvas, a portrait of the king and queen.[40] Others speculate that Velázquez represents himself painting the Infanta Margaret Theresa.

One additional theory is presented by Kenneth Clark, who postulates that it is a scene where the ladies-in-waiting are attempting to cajole the Infanta Dona Margarita to pose with her mother and father. In his 1960 book "Looking at Pictures", Clark writes:

"Our first feeling is of being there. We are standing just to the right of the King and Queen, whose reflections we can see in the distant mirror, looking down an austere room in the Alcazar (hung with del Mazo's copies of Rubens) and watching a familiar situation. The Infanta Dona Margarita doesn't want to pose. She has been painted by Velazquez ever since she could stand. She is now five years old, and she has had enough. But this is to be something different; an enormous picture, so big that it stands on the floor, in which she is going to appear with her parents; and somehow the Infanta must be persuaded. Her ladies-in-waiting, known by the Portuguese name of meninas, are doing their best to cajole her, and have brought her dwarfs, Maribarbola and Nicolasito, to amuse her. But in fact they alarm her almost as much as they alarm us, and it will be some time before the sitting can take place. So far as we know, the huge official portrait was never painted."[41]

The back wall of the room, which is in shadow, is hung with rows of paintings, including one of a series of scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses by Peter Paul Rubens, and copies, by Velázquez's son-in-law and principal assistant Juan del Mazo, of works by Jacob Jordaens.[24] The paintings are shown in the exact positions recorded in an inventory taken around this time.[31] The wall to the right is hung with a grid of eight smaller paintings, visible mainly as frames owing to their angle from the viewer.[28] They can be identified from the inventory as more Mazo copies of paintings from the Rubens Ovid series, though only two of the subjects can be seen.[24]

The paintings on the back wall are recognized as representing Minerva Punishing Arachne and Apollo's Victory Over Marsyas. Both stories involve Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and patron of the arts. These two legends are both stories of mortals challenging gods and the dreadful consequences. One scholar points out that the legend dealing with two women, Minerva and Arachne, is on the same side of the mirror as the queen's reflection while the male legend, involving the god Apollo and the satyr Marsyas, is on the side of the king.[42]

The painted surface is divided into quarters horizontally and sevenths vertically; this grid is used to organise the elaborate grouping of characters, and was a common device at the time.[43] Velázquez presents nine figures—eleven if the king and queen's reflected images are included—yet they occupy only the lower half of the canvas.[44]

According to López-Rey, the painting has three focal points: the Infanta Margaret Theresa, the self-portrait and the half-length reflected images of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana. In 1960, the art historian Kenneth Clark made the point that the success of the composition is a result first and foremost of the accurate handling of light and shade:

Each focal point involves us in a new set of relations; and to paint a complex group like the Meninas, the painter must carry in his head a single consistent scale of relations which he can apply throughout. He may use all kinds of devices to help him do this—perspective is one of them—but ultimately the truth about a complete visual impression depends on one thing, truth of tone. Drawing may be summary, colours drab, but if the relations of tone are true, the picture will hold.[43]

However, the focal point of the painting is widely debated. Leo Steinberg argues that the orthogonals in the work are intentionally disguised so that the picture's focal center shifts. Similar to Lopez-Rey, he describes three foci. The man in the doorway, however, is the vanishing point. More specifically, the crook of his arm is where the orthogonals of the windows and lights of the ceiling meet.[45]

Depth and dimension are rendered by the use of linear perspective, by the overlapping of the layers of shapes, and in particular, as stated by Clark, through the use of tone. This compositional element operates within the picture in a number of ways. First, there is the appearance of natural light within the painted room and beyond it. The pictorial space in the midground and foreground is lit from two sources: by thin shafts of light from the open door, and by broad streams coming through the window to the right.[31] The 20th-century French philosopher and cultural critic Michel Foucault observed that the light from the window illuminates both the studio foreground and the unrepresented area in front of it, in which the king, the queen, and the viewer are presumed to be situated.[46] For José Ortega y Gasset, light divides the scene into three distinct parts, with foreground and background planes strongly illuminated, between which a darkened intermediate space includes silhouetted figures.[47]

Velázquez uses this light not only to add volume and definition to each form but also to define the focal points of the painting. As the light streams in from the right it brightly glints on the braid and golden hair of the female dwarf, who is nearest the light source. But because her face is turned from the light, and in shadow, its tonality does not make it a point of particular interest. Similarly, the light glances obliquely on the cheek of the lady-in-waiting near her, but not on her facial features. Much of her lightly coloured dress is dimmed by shadow. The Infanta, however, stands in full illumination, and with her face turned towards the light source, even though her gaze is not. Her face is framed by the pale gossamer of her hair, setting her apart from everything else in the picture. The light models the volumetric geometry of her form, defining the conic nature of a small torso bound rigidly into a corset and stiffened bodice, and the panniered skirt extending around her like an oval candy-box, casting its own deep shadow which, by its sharp contrast with the bright brocade, both emphasises and locates the small figure as the main point of attention.

Detail of doña María de Sotomayor, showing Velázquez's free brushwork on her dress

Velázquez further emphasises the Infanta by his positioning and lighting of her maids of honour, whom he sets opposing one another: to left and right, before and behind the Infanta. The maid to the left faces the light, her brightly lit profile and sleeve creating a diagonal. Her opposite number creates a broader but less defined reflection of her attention, making a diagonal space between them, in which their charge stands protected.[48]

A further internal diagonal passes through the space occupied by the Infanta. There is a similar connection between the female dwarf and the figure of Velázquez himself, both of whom look towards the viewer from similar angles, creating a visual tension. The face of Velázquez is dimly lit by light that is reflected, rather than direct. For this reason his features, though not as sharply defined, are more visible than those of the dwarf who is much nearer the light source. This appearance of a total face, full-on to the viewer, draws the attention, and its importance is marked, tonally, by the contrasting frame of dark hair, the light on the hand and brush, and the skilfully placed triangle of light on the artist's sleeve, pointing directly to the face.

From the figure of the artist, the viewer's eye leaps again diagonally into the pictorial space. Another man stands, echoing and opposing the form of the artist, outside rather than inside, made clearly defined and yet barely identifiable by the light and shade. The positioning of such an area of strong tonal contrast right at the rear of the pictorial space is a daring compositional tactic. The shapes of bright light are similar to the irregular light shapes of the foreground Maid of Honour, but the sharply defined door-frame repeats the border of the mirror.

The mirror is a perfectly defined unbroken pale rectangle within a broad black rectangle. A clear geometric shape, like a lit face, draws the attention of the viewer more than a broken geometric shape such as the door, or a shadowed or oblique face such as that of the dwarf in the foreground or that of the man in the background. The viewer cannot distinguish the features of the king and queen, but in the opalescent sheen of the mirror's surface, the glowing ovals are plainly turned directly to the viewer. Jonathan Miller pointed out that apart from "adding suggestive gleams at the bevelled edges, the most important way the mirror betrays its identity is by disclosing imagery whose brightness is so inconsistent with the dimness of the surrounding wall that it can only have been borrowed, by reflection, from the strongly illuminated figures of the King and Queen".[49]

As the maids of honour are reflected in each other, so too do the king and queen have their doubles within the painting, in the dimly lit forms of the chaperone and guard, the two who serve and care for their daughter. The positioning of these figures sets up a pattern, one man, a couple, one man, a couple, and while the outer figures are nearer the viewer than the others, they all occupy the same horizontal band on the picture's surface.

Adding to the inner complexities of the picture and creating further visual interactions is the male dwarf in the foreground, whose raised hand echoes the gesture of the figure in the background, while his playful demeanour, and distraction from the central action, are in complete contrast with it. The informality of his pose, his shadowed profile, and his dark hair all serve to make him a mirror image to the kneeling attendant of the Infanta. However, the painter has set him forward of the light streaming through the window, and so minimised the contrast of tone on this foreground figure.

Despite certain spatial ambiguities this is the painter's most thoroughly rendered architectural space, and the only one in which a ceiling is shown. According to López-Rey, in no other composition did Velázquez so dramatically lead the eye to areas beyond the viewer's sight: both the canvas he is seen painting, and the space beyond the frame where the king and queen stand can only be imagined.[50] The bareness of the dark ceiling, the back of Velázquez's canvas, and the strict geometry of framed paintings contrast with the animated, brilliantly lit and sumptuously painted foreground entourage.[51] Stone writes:

We cannot take in all the figures of the painting in one glance. Not only do the life-size proportions of the painting preclude such an appreciation, but also the fact that the heads of the figures are turned in different directions means that our gaze is deflected. The painting communicates through images which, in order to be understood, must thus be considered in sequence, one after the other, in the context of a history that is still unfolding. It is a history that is still unframed, even in this painting composed of frames within frames.[52]

According to Kahr, the composition could have been influenced by the traditional Dutch Gallery Pictures such as those by Frans Francken the Younger, Willem van Haecht, or David Teniers the Younger. Teniers' work was owned by Philip IV and would have been known by Velázquez. Like Las Meninas, they often depict formal visits by important collectors or rulers, a common occurrence, and "show a room with a series of windows dominating one side wall and paintings hung between the windows as well as on the other walls". Gallery Portraits were also used to glorify the artist as well as royalty or members of the higher classes, as may have been Velázquez's intention with this work.[53]

Detail of the mirror in van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait. Van Eyck's painting shows the pictorial space from "behind", and two further figures in front of the picture space, like those in the reflection in the mirror in Las Meninas.

The spatial structure and positioning of the mirror's reflection are such that Philip IV and Mariana appear to be standing on the viewer's side of the pictorial space, facing the Infanta and her entourage. According to Janson, not only is the gathering of figures in the foreground for Philip and Mariana's benefit, but the painter's attention is concentrated on the couple, as he appears to be working on their portrait.[34] Although they can only be seen in the mirror reflection, their distant image occupies a central position in the canvas, in terms of social hierarchy as well as composition. As spectators, the viewer's position in relation to the painting is uncertain. It has been debated whether the ruling couple are standing beside the viewer or have replaced the viewer, who sees the scene through their eyes. Lending weight to the latter idea are the gazes of three of the figures—Velázquez, the Infanta, and Maribarbola—who appear to be looking directly at the viewer.[54]

The mirror on the back wall indicates what is not there: the king and queen, and in the words of Harriet Stone, "the generations of spectators who assume the couple's place before the painting".[28] Writing in 1980, the critics Snyder and Cohn observed:

Velázquez wanted the mirror to depend upon the useable [sic] painted canvas for its image. Why should he want that? The luminous image in the mirror appears to reflect the king and queen themselves, but it does more than just this: the mirror outdoes nature. The mirror image is only a reflection. A reflection of what? Of the real thing—of the art of Velázquez. In the presence of his divinely ordained monarchs ... Velázquez exults in his artistry and counsels Philip and Maria not to look for the revelation of their image in the natural reflection of a looking glass but rather in the penetrating vision of their master painter. In the presence of Velázquez, a mirror image is a poor imitation of the real.[55]

In the Arnolfini Portrait (1434), Jan van Eyck uses an image reflected in a mirror in a manner similar to Velázquez in Las Meninas.[14]

In Las Meninas, the king and queen are supposedly "outside" the painting, yet their reflection in the back wall mirror also places them "inside" the pictorial space.[56]

Snyder proposes it is "a mirror of majesty" or an allusion to the mirror for princes. While it is a literal reflection of the king and queen, Snyder writes "it is the image of exemplary monarchs, a reflection of ideal character". [57] Later he focuses his attention on the princess, writing that Velázquez's portrait is "the painted equivalent of a manual for the education of the princess—a mirror of the princess". [58]

The painting is likely to have been influenced by Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, of 1434. At the time, van Eyck's painting hung in Philip's palace, and would have been familiar to Velázquez.[14][59] The Arnolfini Portrait also has a mirror positioned at the back of the pictorial space, reflecting two figures who would have the same angle of vision as does the viewer of Velázquez's painting; they are too small to identify, but it has been speculated that one may be intended as the artist himself, though he is not shown in the act of painting. According to Lucien Dällenbach:

The mirror [in Las Meninas] faces the observer as in Van Eyck's painting. But here the procedure is more realistic to the degree that the "rearview" mirror in which the royal couple appears is no longer convex but flat. Whereas the reflection in the Flemish painting recomposed objects and characters within a space that is condensed and deformed by the curve of the mirror, that of Velázquez refuses to play with the laws of perspective: it projects onto the canvas the perfect double of the king and queen positioned in front of the painting. Moreover, in showing the figures whom the painter observes, and also, through the mediation of the mirror, the figures who are observing him, the painter achieves a reciprocity of gazes that makes the interior oscillate with the exterior and which causes the image to "emerge from its frame" at the same time that it invites the visitors to enter the painting.[60]

Jonathan Miller asks: "What are we to make of the blurred features of the royal couple? It is unlikely that it has anything to do with the optical imperfection of the mirror, which would, in reality, have displayed a focused image of the King and Queen". He notes that "in addition to the represented mirror, he teasingly implies an unrepresented one, without which it is difficult to imagine how he could have shown himself painting the picture we now see".[61]