This painting is the result of two acts carried out in different periods. First, Velázquez painted the surface occupied by the figures and the tapestry in the background. Later, in the 18th century, a wide strip (with the arch and oculus) was added to the top, along with narrower ones on the left, right and bottom (these additions are not visible in the current presentation of this work). T
Rape of Europa is a faithful copy made by Peter Paul Rubens in Madrid after an original by Titian. It shows the Phoenician princess Europa after she was abducted by Zeus, who had taken on the form of a white bull. The fearful princess, barely holding on to one of the bull´s horns, was taken to Crete, where she bore Minos. The story was told by several ancient sources, among them Ovid (43 BCE-CE 17
Wearing his characteristic winged hat, and with a pan flute next to his left hand, Mercury stealthily approaches a shepherd he has lulled to sleep with the unlimited powers of his music. The latter is the one-hundred-eyed Argos, whom Juno appointed to watch over Io, the beautiful nymph she had turned into a cow in order to protect her from the amorous advances of he husband, Jupiter. Fully aware o
The first documentation of Diego Velazquez´s Mars is from 1701-03, when it appeared in the inventory of paintings at the Torre de la Parada, the royal hunting pavilion on the outskirts of Madrid. The painting is cited along with Velázquez´s Aesop c.1638 (P01206) and Menippus 1639-40 (P01207). The three paintings have similar dimensions, and each are as tall as the Heraclitus, Democritus and
A copy of the famous Hellenistic bronze —there is a Roman copy in the Capitolino Museum in Rome— representing a nude boy pulling a thorn out of his foot. The soft modeling, orderly arrangement of his hair and inexpressive face faithfully follow the Roman model. In the seventeenth century it was popularly said that the sculpture was commissioned by the Roman Senate in homage to a shepherd named Mar
This cast-bronze work is based on a late-Hellenistic work in the Borghese Collection in Rome, only differing in the face. It was commissioned by Velázquez and cast in 1652 for Felipe IV. Like Hermaphrodite (E00223) and The Boy with Thorn (E00163), this bronze casting was commissioned by Velázquez in Rome during his second voyage to Italy (1648-1651). Along with many other cast pieces