Where can you see Diego Velázquez in New York?

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Juan de Pareja. At the Frick Collection: King Philip IV of Spain. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

What is Diego Velázquez's most famous work in New York?

Juan de Pareja, of 1650, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pareja, born in Spain of African descent and enslaved in the painter's workshop, looks straight out in a grey doublet and a lace collar. When it was shown in Rome, a painter who saw it said that everything else was art and this alone was truth.

When and where was Diego Velázquez born?

In June 1599, at Seville, Spain. Diego Velázquez died on 6 August 1660, at Madrid, Spain, aged about 61.

What is Diego Velázquez known for?

Painter to King Philip IV of Spain for nearly forty years. His Juan de Pareja was the first painting sold at auction for more than a million pounds. Painted the portrait in Rome, in 1650. Diego Velázquez was a Spanish painter, of the Baroque.

Painter, 1599 to 1660

Diego Velázquez

Velázquez painted for one patron, the king of Spain, and almost everything he made is still in Madrid. New York has two of the best that are not.

Born: 1599, Seville, Spain
Died: 1660, Madrid, Spain
Movement: Baroque
In New York: 2 works in 2 museums

Where to see Diego Velázquez in New York

Each work with the museum it hangs in. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art1 work

Juan de Pareja
1650
Pareja, born in Spain of African descent and enslaved in the painter's workshop, looks straight out in a grey doublet and a lace collar. When it was shown in Rome, a painter who saw it said that everything else was art and this alone was truth.

Frick Collection1 work

King Philip IV of Spain
1644
The king in the red and silver he wore to review his troops, painted in a makeshift studio at Fraga during a campaign in Catalonia.

The life of Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez was born in Seville in 1599 and at twenty-four became painter to Philip IV in Madrid, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He travelled to Italy twice. On the second journey, in Rome in 1650, he painted the man who had come with him, Juan de Pareja, as practice for a portrait of the pope.

The Metropolitan Museum bought the Pareja in London in 1970 for a price no painting had fetched before. Pareja was a painter himself, and Velázquez signed the paper that freed him a few months after the portrait was shown.

What to know

Painter to King Philip IV of Spain for nearly forty years
His Juan de Pareja was the first painting sold at auction for more than a million pounds
Painted the portrait in Rome, in 1650

Born: June 1599, Seville, Spain
Died: 6 August 1660, Madrid, Spain