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89-663: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez , (baptized 6 June 1599 – 6 August 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age . He was an individualistic artist of the Baroque period ( c.  1600–1750 ). He began to paint in a precise tenebrist style, later developing a freer manner characterized by bold brushwork. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of

178-545: A "sharer of the bread" at table, and a court is an extension of the great individual's household. Wherever members of the household and bureaucrats of the administration overlap in personnel, it is reasonable to speak of a "court", for example in Achaemenid Persia , Ming China , Norman Sicily , the papacy before 1870 (see: papal household ), and the Austro-Hungarian Empire . A group of individuals dependent on

267-486: A command to come to the court from Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares , the powerful minister of Philip   IV. He was offered 50 ducats (175 g of gold) to defray his expenses, and he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his home and sat for a portrait, which, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace. A portrait of the king was commissioned, and on 30 August 1623, Philip   IV sat for Velázquez. The portrait pleased

356-556: A crowd of men and women being led away by soldiers, while the female personification of Spain sits in calm repose. Velázquez was appointed gentleman usher as reward. Later he also received a daily allowance of 12 réis , the same amount allotted to the court barbers, and 90 ducats a year for dress. In September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens was positioned in Madrid as an emissary from the Infanta Isabella, and Velázquez accompanied him to view

445-522: A deception, and the mythological scene depicting the revelation of a deception. As he had done in The Triumph of Bacchus , Velázquez presented his characters as contemporary people whose gestures and facial expressions were those of everyday life. Following the example of Bolognese painters such as Guido Reni , Velázquez painted Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan on canvas prepared with a light gray ground rather than

534-413: A depiction of Ovid's Fable of Arachne . The tapestry in the background is based on Titian 's The Rape of Europa , or, more probably, the copy that Rubens painted in Madrid. It is full of light, air and movement, featuring vibrant colors and careful handling. Anton Raphael Mengs said this work seemed to have been painted not by the hand but by the pure force of will. It displays a concentration of all

623-410: A fixed place. One of the criteria of Norbert Elias' concept of a court society is that it existed in space. The German word Hof , meaning an enclosed courtyard , can also apply to a rural farmstead with outbuildings and walls forming the perimeter. It has also been used for the palatial seat where the court was held. Thus Hof or "court" can become transferred to the building itself. For example,

712-641: A formula used by Pacheco, but replaces the idealized facial type and smoothly finished surfaces of his teacher with the face of a local girl and varied brushwork. His other religious works include The Adoration of the Magi (1619) and Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos (1618–19), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism. Also from this period are the portrait of Sor Jerónima de la Fuente (1620)—Velázquez's first full-length portrait—and

801-438: A mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face, visually reinforcing the idea of death. The figure is presented alone before a dark background. Velázquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and Mazo himself had received a steady promotion in the royal household. Mazo received a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and

890-444: A painting of a group of men in contemporary dress paying homage to a half-naked ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. Velázquez's first mythological painting, it has been interpreted variously as a depiction of a theatrical performance, as a parody, or as a symbolic representation of peasants asking the god of wine to give them relief from their sorrows. The style shows the naturalism of Velázquez's early works slightly touched by

979-506: A period of economic crisis. The Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I ) arrived at the court of Spain in 1623. Records indicate that he sat for Velázquez, but the picture is now lost. In 1627, Philip set a competition for the best painters of Spain with the subject to be the expulsion of the Moors . Velázquez won, with a painting (destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734) which records say depicted Philip III pointing with his baton to

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1068-459: A rather limited palette, but he mixed the available paints with great skill to achieve varying hues. His pigments were not significantly different from those of his contemporaries and he mainly employed azurite , smalt , vermilion , red lake , lead-tin-yellow and ochres . His early works were painted on canvases prepared with a red-brown ground. He adopted the use of light-gray grounds during his first trip to Italy, and continued using them for

1157-449: A short time under Francisco de Herrera before beginning his apprenticeship under Pacheco, but this is undocumented. A contract signed on 17 September 1611, formalized a six-year apprenticeship with Pacheco, backdated to December 1610, and it has been suggested that Herrera may have substituted for a traveling Pacheco between December 1610 and September 1611. Although considered a dull and undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed

1246-440: A simple, direct realism , though his work remained essentially Mannerist . As a teacher, he was highly learned and encouraged his students' intellectual development. In Pacheco's school, Velázquez studied the classics , was trained in proportion and perspective, and witnessed the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville. On 23 April 1618, Velázquez married Juana Pacheco (1 June 1602 – 10 August 1660),

1335-402: A strict order of precedence , often involving imperial, royal and noble ranks , orders of chivalry , and nobility . Some courts even featured court uniforms . One of the major markers of a court is ceremony . Most monarchal courts included ceremonies concerning the investiture or coronation of the monarch and audiences with the monarch. Some courts had ceremonies around the waking and

1424-546: A suitable distance to get the impression of complete, three-dimensional spatiality. His only surviving portrait of the delicate and sickly Prince Felipe Prospero is remarkable for its combination of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog with a subtle sense of gloom. The hope that was placed at that time in the sole heir to the Spanish crown is reflected in the depiction: fresh red and white stand in contrast to late autumnal, morbid colors. A small dog with wide eyes looks at

1513-469: A taint of heresy in their lineage—that is, a trace of Jewish or Moorish blood or contamination by trade or commerce in either side of the family for many generations. The records of this commission have been found among the archives of the Order of Santiago. Velázquez was awarded the honor in 1659. His occupation as plebeian and tradesman was justified because, as painter to the king, he was evidently not involved in

1602-473: A wise and well-educated man. Pablo de Valladolid (1635), a buffoon evidently acting a part, and The Buffoon of Coria (1639) belong to this middle period. As court painter, Velázquez had fewer commissions for religious works than any of his contemporaries. Christ Crucified (1632), painted for the Convent of San Plácido in Madrid, depicts Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs on his breast and

1691-405: Is a faintly comic incongruity. The equivocal image has been interpreted in various ways: Javier Portús describes it as a "reflection on reality, representation, and the artistic vision", while Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez says it "has also been seen as a melancholy meditation on the arms of Spain in decline". Had it not been for his royal appointment, which enabled Velázquez to escape the censorship of

1780-509: Is a mystery: are the royal pair standing in the viewer's space, or does the mirror reflect the painting on which Velázquez is working? Dale Brown says Velázquez may have conceived the faded image of the king and queen on the back wall as a foreshadowing of the fall of the Spanish Empire that was to gain momentum following Philip's death. In the 1966 book Les Mots et Les Choses ( The Order of Things ), philosopher Michel Foucault devotes

1869-430: Is full-length, stately and dignified, in which he wears the green cross of the order of Alcantara and holds a wand, the badge of his office as master of the horse; in the other, The Count-Duke of Olivares on Horseback ( c.  1635 ), he is flatteringly represented as a field marshal during action. In these portraits, Velázquez well repaid the debt of gratitude that he owed to the patron who had first brought him to

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1958-444: Is reduced once more to that of noble households, concentrating on personal service to the household head, ceremonial and perhaps some residual politico-advisory functions. If republican zeal has banished an area's erstwhile ruling nobility , courts may survive in exile . Traces of royal court practices remain in present-day institutions like privy councils and governmental cabinets. A series of Pharaohs ruled Ancient Egypt over

2047-401: Is typical in such scenes, in which a general on horseback looks down on his vanquished, kneeling opponent. Instead, Velázquez shows the Spanish general standing before his Dutch counterpart as an equal, and extending to him a hand of consolation. The impassive, saturnine face of the influential minister Olivares is familiar to us from the many portraits painted by Velázquez. Two are notable: one

2136-576: The Balkans to Yemen was controlled by the court in Istanbul . The royal courts in the Islamic world were mostly run by rulers, but there were the exceptions of important elite families such as Barmakids and Nizams who established their own minor courts, enabling them to encourage arts and improve the empire even if the ruling king was useless. Adoration of the Magi (Vel%C3%A1zquez) The Adoration of

2225-633: The Byzantine Empire , Islamic Empire, Mamluk Sultanate, Ottoman Empire and British Empire with a distant monarch. The Sultanate of Egypt was a short lived protectorate of the United Kingdom from 1914 until 1922, when it became the Kingdom of Egypt and Sultan Fuad I changed his title to King. After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 the monarchy was dissolved and Egypt became a republic. In

2314-895: The Heian period , Japanese emperors and their families developed an exquisitely refined court that played an important role in their culture. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, a true court culture can be recognised in the entourage of the Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great and in the court of Charlemagne . In the Roman East, a brilliant court continued to surround the Byzantine emperors . In Western Europe , consolidation of power of local magnates and of kings in fixed administrative centres from

2403-724: The Horn of Africa , the Kingdom of Aksum and later the Zagwe dynasty , Ethiopian Empire (1270–1974), and Aussa Sultanate all had royal courts. Various Somali Sultanates also existed, including the Adal Sultanate (led by the Walashma dynasty of the Ifat Sultanate ), Sultanate of Mogadishu , Ajuran Sultanate , Warsangali Sultanate, Geledi Sultanate , Majeerteen Sultanate and Sultanate of Hobyo . The kingship system has been an integral part of

2492-463: The Inquisition , he would not have been able to release his La Venus del espejo ( c.  1644–1648 , English: Venus at her Mirror ) also known as The Rokeby Venus . It is the first known female nude painted by a Spanish artist, and the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. Besides the many portraits of Philip by Velázquez—thirty-four by one count—he painted portraits of other members of

2581-518: The Kingdom of Macedonia , developing a royal court that would later influence the courts of Hellenistic Greece and the Roman Empire . The Sasanian Empire adopting and developing the earlier court culture and customs of the Achaemenid Empire would also influence again the development of the complex court and court customs of the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire . The imperial court of

2670-871: The Mande members of the Tunkalemmu caste in Mali, the Bamum sultans of Cameroon , the Kanem shaykhs of Chad , the Hausa emirs of northern Nigeria , the inkosis of the Southern African Zulus and Xhosas , and the obas and baales of Yorubaland , amongst others, continue the pageantry and court lifestyle traditions once common to the continent. Court officials or office-bearers (one type of courtier ) derived their positions and retained their titles from their original duties within

2759-800: The Neo-Assyrian Empire and Zhou dynasty . Two of the earliest titles referring to the concept of a courtier were likely the ša rēsi and mazzāz pāni of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In Ancient Egypt, there is a title translated as high steward or great overseer of the house. The royal courts influenced by the court of the Neo-Assyrian Empire such as those of the Median Empire and the Achaemenid Empire would also have identifiable developed courts with court appointments and other features associated with later courts. The imperial court of

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2848-715: The Omayyad , the Fatimid and the Abbasid ) to become the largest, most culturally developed cities of their time. This drew talented people from all walks of life—such as musicians , singers , poets and scientists —to seek employment under the patronage of elite bureaucrats , emirs and Sultans at court. The other Caliphate was the Ottoman , which employed its court's culture to stabilize an empire inhabited by huge non-Islamic populations spanning three continents . Everything from Algeria to

2937-961: The Room of Mirrors at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid , Velázquez commissioned Matteo Bonuccelli to cast twelve bronze copies of the Medici lions . The copies are now in the Royal Palace of Madrid and the Museo del Prado . During his time in Rome, Velázquez fathered a natural son, Antonio, whom he is not known ever to have seen. From February 1650, Philip repeatedly sought Velázquez's return to Spain. Accordingly, after visiting Naples —where he saw his old friend Jose Ribera—and Venice, Velázquez returned to Spain via Barcelona in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which afterwards were arranged and catalogued for

3026-482: The Spanish royal family and commoners, culminating in his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656). Velázquez's paintings became a model for 19th century realist and impressionist painters. In the 20th century, artists such as Pablo Picasso , Salvador Dalí , and Francis Bacon paid tribute to Velázquez by re-interpreting some of his most iconic images. Most of his work entered the Spanish royal collection , and by far

3115-573: The Titians at the Escorial . Rubens, who demonstrated his brilliance as painter and courtier during the seven months of the diplomatic mission, had a high opinion of Velázquez but had no significant influence on his painting. He did, however, galvanize Velázquez's desire to see Italy and the works of the great Italian masters. In 1629, Velázquez received 100 ducats for the picture of Bacchus ( The Triumph of Bacchus ), also called Los Borrachos (The Drunks),

3204-459: The "theology of painting", and in 1827 the president of the Royal Academy of Arts Sir Thomas Lawrence described it in a letter as "the true philosophy of the art". However, it is unclear as to who or what is the true subject of the picture. Is it the royal daughter, or perhaps the painter himself? The king and queen are seen reflected in a mirror on the back wall, but the source of the reflection

3293-426: The Achaemenid Empire at Persepolis and Pasargadae is the earliest identifiable complex court with all of the definitive features of a royal court such as a household, court appointments , courtiers, and court ceremony. Though Alexander the Great had an entourage and the rudimentary elements of a court, it was not until after he conquered Persia that he took many of the more complex Achaemenid court customs back to

3382-626: The Burgundian court would write one of the seminal books on court etiquette, Les honneurs de la cour ( Honours of the Court ). Court life would reach its apogee of culture, complexity and etiquette at the courts of Versailles under Louis XIV of France and the Hofburg under the Habsburgs . As political executive functions are assumed by democratic or republican institutions, the function of noble courts

3471-630: The Byzantine Empire at Constantinople would eventually contain at least a thousand courtiers. The court's systems became prevalent in other courts such as those in the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire , and Russia . Byzantinism is a term that was coined for this spread of the Byzantine system in the 19th century. The imperial courts of Chinese emperors , known as cháotíng ( 朝廷 ), were among

3560-527: The House of Martha (1618) and Kitchen Scene with Christ at Emmaus ( c.  1618 ), feature religious scenes in the background, painted in a way that creates ambiguity as to whether the religious scene is a painting on the wall, a representation of the thoughts of the kitchen maid in the foreground, or an actual incident seen through a window. The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (1618–19) follows

3649-527: The Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa . Velázquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the entire scenic display. He attracted much attention from the nobility of his bearing and the splendor of his costume. On 26 June he returned to Madrid, and on 31 July he was stricken with fever. Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend named Fuensalida, keeper of

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3738-514: The King. Velázquez was not allowed to paint the new king, Philip IV , but portrayed the poet Luis de Góngora at the request of Pacheco. The portrait showed Góngora crowned with a laurel wreath, which Velázquez later painted over. He returned to Seville in January 1623 and remained there until August. In December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando , the king's favorite court painter, died. Velázquez received

3827-520: The Magi is a 1619 Baroque painting by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez now held in the Museo del Prado . It shows three kings presenting gifts to the Christ child : Melchior , who kneels in the foreground; Balthazar , who stands behind him wearing a red cape and a lace collar; and Caspar , who appears between the other two. An unidentified young man who stands behind Balthazar is looking on. Kneeling near

3916-575: The Modena sale of 1746. Those works presage the advent of the painter's third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Pope Innocent X in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome, where Velázquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favor by the Pope, who presented him with a medal and golden chain. Velázquez took a copy of the portrait—which Sir Joshua Reynolds thought

4005-641: The Pope. It captures in great detail Pareja's countenance and his somewhat worn and patched clothing with an economic use of brushwork. In November 1650, Juan de Pareja was freed from slavery by Velázquez. To this period also belong two small landscape paintings both titled View of the Garden of the Villa Medici . As landscapes apparently painted directly from nature, they were exceptional for their time, and reveal Velázquez's close study of light at different times of day. As part of his mission to procure decorations for

4094-631: The Pope; in fact Innocent was pleased with the work, and hung it in his official visitor's waiting room. In 1650 in Rome Velázquez also painted a portrait of Juan de Pareja , now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, US. This portrait procured his election into the Accademia di San Luca . Purportedly Velázquez created this portrait as a warm-up of his skills before his portrait of

4183-560: The art-knowledge Velázquez had gathered during his long artistic career of more than forty years. The scheme is simple—a confluence of varied and blended red, bluish-green, gray and black. Velázquez's final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works and in the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress the painter's personal style reached its high-point: shimmering spots of color on wide painting surfaces produce an almost impressionistic effect—the viewer must stand at

4272-727: The best collection is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, although some portraits were sent abroad as diplomatic gifts, especially to the Austrian Habsburgs . Velázquez was born in Seville , Spain, the first child of Juan Rodríguez de Silva, a notary , and Jerónima Velázquez. He was baptized at the church of St. Peter in Seville on Sunday, 6 June 1599. The baptism most probably occurred a few days or weeks after his birth. His paternal grandparents, Diego da Silva and María Rodríguez, were Portuguese and had moved to Seville decades earlier. When Velázquez

4361-406: The canvas. However, Velázquez did not receive this honor of knighthood until three years after execution of this painting. Even the King of Spain could not make his favorite court painter a belted knight without the consent of the commission established to inquire into the purity of his lineage . The aim of these inquiries would be to prevent the appointment to positions of anyone found to have even

4450-400: The course of three millennia ( c.  3150 BC to 31 BC), until it was conquered by the Roman Empire . In the same time period several kingdoms with their own royal courts flourished in the nearby Nubia region, with at least one of them, that of the so-called A-Group culture, apparently influencing the customs of Egypt itself. From the 6th to 19th centuries, Egypt was variously part of

4539-501: The court or royal household in the broadest definition. Entertainers and others may have been counted as part of the court. A royal household is the highest-ranking example of patronage . A regent or viceroy may hold court during the minority or absence of the hereditary ruler, and even an elected head of state may develop a court-like entourage of unofficial, personally-chosen advisers and "companions". The French word compagnon and its English derivation "companion" literally mean

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4628-517: The court. Foreign princes and foreign nobility in exile may also seek refuge at a court. Near Eastern and Far Eastern courts often included the harem and concubines as well as eunuchs who fulfilled a variety of functions. At times, the harem was walled off and separate from the rest of the residence of the monarch. In Asia , concubines were often a more visible part of the court. Lower ranking servants and bodyguards were not properly called courtiers, though they might be included as part of

4717-472: The courtly household. With time, such duties often became archaic. However, titles survived involving the ghosts of arcane duties. These styles generally dated back to the days when a noble household had practical and mundane concerns as well as high politics and culture. Such court appointments each have their own histories. They might include but are not limited to: Earlier courts in medieval Western Europe were itinerant courts , but courts were often held in

4806-501: The dark reddish ground of all his earlier works. The change resulted in a greater luminosity than he had previously achieved, and he made the use of light-gray grounds his regular practice. Velázquez returned to Madrid in January 1631. That year he completed the first of his many portraits of the young prince, beginning with Prince Balthasar Charles with a Dwarf (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts). ln portraits such as Equestrian portrait of prince Balthasar Charles (1635), Velázquez depicts

4895-456: The daughter of his teacher. They had two daughters. The elder, Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco (1619–1658), married painter Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo at the Church of Santiago in Madrid on 21 August 1633. The younger, Ignacia de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, born in 1621, died in infancy. Velázquez's earliest works are bodegones (kitchen scenes with prominent still-life ). He was one of

4984-492: The death of King Philip, that they were finally settled. It is canonical to divide Velázquez's career by his two visits to Italy. He rarely signed his pictures, and the royal archives give the dates of only his most important works. Internal evidence and history pertaining to his portraits supply the rest to a certain extent. Although acquainted with all the Italian schools and a friend of the foremost painters of his day, Velázquez

5073-467: The first Spanish artists to paint such scenes, and his Old Woman Frying Eggs (1618) demonstrates the young artist's unusual skill in realistic depiction. The realism and dramatic lighting of this work may have been influenced by Caravaggio 's work—which Velázquez could have seen second-hand, in copies—and by the polychrome sculpture in Sevillian churches. Two of his bodegones, Kitchen Scene with Christ in

5162-465: The genre The Water Seller of Seville (1618–1622). The Water Seller of Seville has been termed "the peak of Velázquez's bodegones " and is admired for its virtuoso rendering of volumes and textures as well as for its enigmatic gravitas. Velázquez had established his reputation in Seville by the early 1620s. He traveled to Madrid in April 1622, with letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, chaplain to

5251-457: The grand residence Hampton Court Palace on the River Thames above London was where Thomas Wolsey held court as Catholic cardinal (built after the Italian ideal for a cardinal's palace) until his fall and its confiscation by Henry VIII . William III and Mary II also held court there, 1689–94. Though it is built round two main courts, the structure itself is no longer the seat of a court in

5340-401: The highest examples of his style. One of the infantas , Margaret Theresa , the eldest daughter of the new queen, appears to be the subject of Las Meninas (1656, English: The Maids of Honour ), Velázquez's magnum opus . Created four years before his death, it serves as an outstanding example of European baroque art. Luca Giordano , a contemporary Italian painter, referred to it as

5429-619: The influence of Titian and Rubens. In 1629, Velázquez was given permission to spend a year and a half in Italy. Although this first visit is recognized as a crucial chapter in the development of his style—and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip   IV sponsored his trip—few details and specifics are known of what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting. He traveled to Venice , Ferrara , Cento , Loreto , Bologna , and Rome . In 1630, he visited Naples to paint

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5518-509: The king is represented in profile in an image of imperturbable majesty, demonstrating expert horsemanship by executing an effortless levade . The large The Surrender of Breda (1634–35), also painted for the Palacio, is Velázquez's only extant painting depicting contemporary history. Its symbolic treatment of a Spanish military victory over the Dutch eschews the rhetoric of conquest and superiority that

5607-506: The king's attention. The sculptor Juan Martínez Montañés modeled a statue on one of Velázquez's equestrian portraits of the king (painted in 1636; now lost) which was cast in bronze by the Florentine sculptor Pietro Tacca and now stands in the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid. Velázquez was in close attendance to Philip, and accompanied him to Aragon in 1644, where the artist painted a portrait of

5696-402: The king, and Olivares commanded Velázquez to move to Madrid, promising that no other painter would ever paint Philip's portrait and all other portraits of the king would be withdrawn from circulation. In the following year, 1624, he received 300 ducats from the king to pay the cost of moving his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life. Velázquez secured admission to

5785-494: The king. Elisabeth of France had died in 1644, and the king had married Mariana of Austria , whom Velázquez now painted in many attitudes. In 1652 he was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of aposentador mayor , which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court—a responsible function which was no sinecure and one which interfered with the exercise of his art. Yet far from indicating any decline, his works of this period are amongst

5874-448: The largest and most complex of all. The Han dynasty , Western Jin dynasty , and Tang dynasty occupied the large palace complex at Weiyang Palace located near Chang'an , and the later Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty occupied the whole Forbidden City and other parts of Beijing , the present capital city of China . By the Sui dynasty , the functions of the imperial household and the imperial government were clearly divided. During

5963-472: The mid-13th century led to the creation of a distinct court culture that was the centre of intellectual and artistic patronage rivaling the abbots and bishops , in addition to its role as the apex of a rudimentary political bureaucracy that rivaled the courts of counts and dukes. The dynamics of hierarchy welded the court cultures together. Many early courts in Western Europe were itinerant courts that traveled from place to place. Local courts proliferated in

6052-455: The monarch in the costume as he reviewed his troops in Fraga . Velázquez's paintings of Aesop and Menippus (both c.  1636–1638 ) portray ancient writers in the guise of portraits of beggars. Mars Resting ( c.  1638 ) is both a depiction of a mythological figure and a portrait of a weary-looking, middle-aged man posing as Mars. The model is painted with attention to his individuality, while his unkempt, oversized mustache

6141-435: The more centralised African societies for millennia. This is especially true in the West African sahel , where royal courts have been in existence since at least the era of the 9th century Takrur and Ghana empires . The ruler of the 13th century Mali empire , Mansa Musa , brought a large number of his courtiers with him on the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca . Today, the courts of the Ashanti nanas in modern Ghana ,

6230-426: The opening chapter to a detailed analysis of Las Meninas . He describes the ways in which the painting problematizes issues of representation through its use of mirrors, screens, and the subsequent oscillations that occur between the image's interior, surface, and exterior. It is said the king painted the honorary Cross of Saint James of the Order of Santiago on the breast of the painter as it appears today on

6319-641: The patronage of a great man, classically in ancient Rome, forms part of the system of "clientage" that is discussed under vassal . Individual rulers differed greatly in tastes and interests, as well as in political skills and in constitutional situations. Accordingly, some founded elaborate courts based on new palaces , only to have their successors retreat to remote castles or to practical administrative centers. Personal retreats might arise far away from official court centres. Etiquette and hierarchy flourish in highly structured court settings, and may leave conservative traces over generations. Most courts featured

6408-521: The portrait of Maria Anna of Spain , and there he probably met Ribera . The major works from his first Italian period are Joseph's Bloody Coat brought to Jacob (1629–30) and Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (1630), both of which reveal his ambition to rival the Italians as a history painter in the grand manner. The two compositions of several nearly life-sized figures have similar dimensions, and may have been conceived as pendants—the biblical scene depicting

6497-468: The practice of "selling" pictures. There were essentially only two patrons of art in Spain—the church and the art-loving king and court. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo , who toiled for a rich and powerful church, left little means to pay for his burial, while Velázquez lived and died in the enjoyment of a good salary and pension. One of his final works was Las hilanderas ( The Spinners ) , painted circa 1657,

6586-497: The prince looking dignified and lordly, or in the dress of a field marshal on his prancing steed. In one version, the scene is in the riding school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares attends as master of the horse to the prince. To decorate the king's new palace, the Palacio del Buen Retiro , Velázquez painted equestrian portraits of the royal family. In Philip   IV on Horseback (1634–35),

6675-468: The rest of his life. The change resulted in paintings with greater luminosity and a generally cool, silvery range of color. Noble court In the largest courts, the royal households, many thousands of individuals constituted the court. These courtiers included the monarch or noble's camarilla and retinue , household, nobility, clergy , those with court appointments , bodyguards , and may also include emissaries from other kingdoms or visitors to

6764-532: The root of the current Spanish congress and senate . The courts of Valois Burgundy and the Kingdom of Portugal were particularly influential over the development of court culture and pageantry in Europe. The court of Philip the Good , Duke of Burgundy was considered one of the most splendid in Europe and would influence the development of court life later on for all of France and Europe. Later, Aliénor de Poitiers of

6853-693: The royal family: Philip's first wife, Elisabeth of Bourbon , and her children, especially her eldest son, Don Baltasar Carlos , whom Velázquez first depicted at about two years of age. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and the poet Francisco de Quevedo (now at Apsley House ), sat for Velázquez. Velázquez also painted several buffoons and dwarfs in Philip's court, whom he depicted sympathetically and with respect for their individuality, as in The Jester Don Diego de Acedo (1644), whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink-bottle and pen by his side show him to be

6942-520: The royal records. He died on 6 August 1660. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of San Juan Bautista , and within eight days his wife Juana was buried beside him. This church was destroyed by the French around 1809, so his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding between Velázquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after

7031-413: The royal service with a salary of 20 ducats per month, lodgings and payment for the pictures he might paint. His portrait of Philip was exhibited on the steps of San Felipe and received with enthusiasm. It is now lost (as is the portrait of Fonseca). The Museo del Prado , however, has two of Velázquez's portraits of the king (nos. 1070 and 1071) in which the severity of the Seville period has disappeared and

7120-653: The sense of this article. As an example, ambassadors to the United Kingdom are still accredited to the Court of St. James's , and courtiers of the monarchy may still have offices in St James's Palace , London. The present monarch, however, holds court at Buckingham Palace , where dignitaries are received. Some former seats of power (see official residence ): All four major Caliphates had sophisticated courts ; this enabled Cordoba , Cairo and Baghdad (the respective seats of

7209-465: The sleeping of the monarch, called a levée . Orders of chivalry as honorific orders became an important part of court culture starting in the 15th century. They were the right of the monarch , as the fount of honour , to create and grant. The earliest developed courts were probably in the Akkadian Empire , Ancient Egypt , and Shang dynasty . However, there is evidence of courts as described in

7298-529: The splintered polities of medieval Europe and remained in early modern times in Germany and in Italy. Such courts became known for intrigue and power politics ; some also gained prominence as centres and collective patrons of art and culture . In medieval Spain ( Castile ), provincial courts were created. Minor noblemen and burguesie allied to create a system to oppose the monarchy on many policy issues. They were called "las Cortes de Castilla". These courts are

7387-436: The tones are more delicate. The modeling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor , the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II , who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. Velázquez depicts Philip wearing the golilla ( es ), a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. The golilla replaced the earlier court fashion of elaborate ruffed collars as part of Philip's dress reform laws during

7476-403: The viewer as if questioningly, and the largely pale background hints at a gloomy fate: the little prince was barely four years old when he died. As in all of the artist's late paintings, the handling of the colors is extraordinarily fluid and vibrant. In 1660, a peace treaty between France and Spain was consummated by the marriage of Maria Theresa with Louis XIV , and the ceremony took place on

7565-478: Was a slave and who had been trained in painting by Velázquez. Velázquez sailed from Málaga , landed at Genoa , and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying paintings of Titian , Tintoretto and Veronese as he went. At Modena he was received with much favor by the duke, and here he painted the portrait of the duke at the Modena gallery and two portraits that now adorn the Dresden gallery, for these paintings came from

7654-401: Was appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647. Philip now entrusted Velázquez with the mission of procuring paintings and sculpture for the royal collection. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and Velázquez was commissioned once again to proceed to Italy to make purchases. When he set out in 1649, he was accompanied by his assistant Juan de Pareja who at this point in time

7743-517: Was offered knighthood in 1658, he claimed descent from the lesser nobility in order to qualify, however, his grandparents may have been tradespeople. Some authors have suggested that his grandparents were Jewish conversos . Rafael Cómez proposes Velázquez may have had Morisco lineage. Raised in modest circumstances, he showed an early gift for art, and was apprenticed to Francisco Pacheco , an artist and teacher in Seville. An early-18th century biographer, Antonio Palomino, said Velázquez studied for

7832-407: Was strong enough to withstand external influences and work out for himself the development of his own nature and his own principles of art. He rejected the pomp that characterized the portraiture of other European courts, and instead brought an even greater reserve to the understated formula for Habsburg portraiture established by Titian, Antonio Mor , and Alonso Sánchez Coello . He is known for using

7921-601: Was the finest picture in Rome—with him to Spain. Several copies of it exist in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. Velázquez, in this work, had now reached the manera abreviada , a term coined by contemporary Spaniards for this bolder, sharper style. The portrait shows such ruthlessness in Innocent's expression that some in the Vatican feared that it would be seen unfavorably by

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