Velázquez [antikvár]

The National Gallery is fortunate in the possession of eight pictures by Velázquez. This number may not seem great when set beside the eighteen works by Rubens or the twenty by Rembrandt in the national collection, but Velázquez himself was a less prolific artist than his great counterparts in northern Europe. The pictures by him on permanent exhibition in London, including several masterpieces at Apsley House and the Wallace Collection, give an impression of the rangé of his genius that can be bettered only by a visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid, where the largest group of pictures by him is displayed. The early works of Velázquez - scenes of everyday life and religious pictures - are well represented at the National Gallery. They lead on to two of his greatest masterpieces, the portrait of King Philip IV 'in brown and silver' and his only surviving painting of a female nude, the 'Rokeby Venus'. Supplementing these outstanding works are two further portraits and a hunting scene in a landscape. The most unfortunate omission from the collection is an important late portrait, but it seems unlikely that this gap can ever be adequately filled since the opportunity of acquiring for the nation the famous portrait of Jüan de Pareja has now so shamefully passed by. Compared with the status that Velázquez enjoyed during his lifetime, and the value at present placed upon his works, he must be regarded as a relatively neglected artist in the years following his death in 1660. Travellers were moved only rarely to visit Spain at that time, preferring the freer and more cultivated life of Paris and Rome. The majority of the artist's works had been commissioned by the Spanish King, Philip IV, and they hung in the dark rooms and corridors of the royal palaces, side by side with the feebler works of Velázquez's contemporaries, and the masterpieces of Italian art that had been acquired by Philip IV and his predecessors. They were at times moved from one palace to another, and many perished in the fire that burnt down the Madrid palace, the Alcázar, in 1734.