Diego Velázquez’s Juan de Pareja

One of the most exceptional portraits in western painting, Diego Velázquez’s Juan de Pareja (1650) portrays, with groundbreaking likeness to truth, a man not typically depicted in the tradition of portraiture. Depicting his enslaved assistant, Velázquez created this work independently of a commission and therefore had greater artistic freedom here than in some of his other well-known portraits. The ability of the artist to paint his assistant in a manner that conveys such realism, personality, and emotion leads to an interest in the relationship between the two men. Favorably received by Velázquez’s contemporaries for its extraordinary skill and its unbelievable likeness to the sitter, Juan de Pareja continues to be admired by visitors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art today.

Running Time: 6 minutes 57 seconds

By Bella Adams, Rose O’Neill, and Bella St. Ivany