Las Meninas

Las Meninas (Spanish: [las meˈninas]; Spanish for 'The Ladies-in-waiting') is a 1656 oil painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting for the way its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and for the uncertain relationship it creates between the viewer and the figures depicted. The painting is believed by the art historian F. J. Sánchez Cantón to depict a room in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid during the reign of Philip IV, and presents several figures, most of them identifiable from the Spanish court, captured in a particular moment as if in a snapshot. Some of the figures look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The five-year-old Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velázquez looks outwards beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. The mirror in the background reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting on which Velázquez is shown working. The Italian Baroque painter Luca Giordano described Las Meninas as the "theology of painting", and in 1827 the president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London Sir Thomas Lawrence called the work "the true philosophy of the art". The painting has since become a focal point for scholarly debates about representation, spectatorship, and the social status of the artist. Michel Foucault opened The Order of Things (1966) with an extended analysis of its treatment of classical representation; Svetlana Alpers read it as Velázquez's claim for painting as a liberal art; and Leo Steinberg (1981) and Joel Snyder (1985) have offered competing accounts of its spatial logic and the function of the mirror on the back wall.

Background

Court of Philip IV

In 17th-century Spain, painters rarely enjoyed high social status. Painting was regarded as a craft, not an art such as poetry or music. 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. 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, 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, and although Philip himself resisted being portrayed in his old age, he allowed 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, where 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. During the 1640s and 1650s, Velázquez served as both court painter and curator of Philip IV's expanding collection of European art. He appears to have been granted an unusual degree of autonomy 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 Museo del Prado today—including works by Titian, Raphael and Rubens—was acquired and assembled under Velázquez's curatorship.

Provenance and condition

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