Portrait of a Little Girl

Diego Velázquez was the principal painter of Spanish King Philip IV from the 1620s to 1660, and a high-ranking member of the palace administration. The king so admired the artist that he made him a noble, naming him a Knight of Santiago, a title confirmed in 1659.

Working for his monarch, Velázquez spent most of his life fulfilling official commissions. Consequently, this canvas stands out as a reflection of an intimate, almost private side of his art. Recent conservation has revealed even more clearly the picture’s breathtaking naturalism and immediacy, effects Velázquez achieved with great restraint and subtlety.

It has always ranked among the artist’s most appealing pictures. Moreover, it occupies an exceptional place in his career as a rare image of non-royal children, and the only one in a single figure format. But who is this charming but solemn young lady, with just a hint of a smile? Velázquez doubtless knew her well, since the picture almost certainly figured among his possessions when he died in 1660. Perhaps, as many have suggested, she was one of his granddaughters. Which one, however, depends on when Velázquez painted the picture, and most scholars agree that it resembles those dating from the late 1630s and early 1640s in its style and brushwork. It could not be later than 1644, when Velázquez painted another portrait in New York, the Fraga Portrait of Philip IV in the Frick Collection. With these dates, it might just be possible to identify the girl as his granddaughter Inés Mañuela Martínez Velázquez, born on August 16, 1638. In 1644, she would have been six years old, about the age of the girl depicted. Whoever she was, the young lady has a hypnotic presence that marks the painting as one of Velázquez’s finest works.

We present today's painting thanks to The Hispanic Society of America.  : )

P.S. Here's everything you must know about Las Meninas, the most renowned and mysterious painting of Diego Velázquez!

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