The stories behind the paintings

In the summer of 1656, Diego Velázquez painted himself at work: standing before an enormous canvas in a high-ceilinged room of Madrid's Real Alcázar, brush in one hand, palette in the other, pausing mid-stroke to look out at whoever has just walked in. Everyone in the room is looking the same way — the five-year-old Infanta Margarita Theresa, her maids of honour, a dwarf, a mastiff, a chaperone in the shadows. What they're all looking at is a small, blurred mirror on the back wall, reflecting two figures who aren't otherwise in the room at all: King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Austria. The question that has occupied art historians for more than three centuries is disarmingly simple. Who, exactly, is Velázquez painting? The picture below is our vintage poster version of the painting; the original is shown further down. Vintage art poster by Sapiens Verbum after Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas . Available from the Sapiens Verbum print shop. 🖼️ Get the vintage...

A young woman lies on a bed of grey-blue satin, her back turned to us, her body a long curve of pale, luminous skin against the dark sheets. At the foot of the bed, a winged child kneels and holds up a mirror, and in it we see her face, or rather a blurred shadow of it, looking back at us. Diego Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus , better known as the Rokeby Venus , painted between 1647 and 1651 and now in the National Gallery in London, is the only female nude by the great Spanish painter to survive, and one of the most famous nudes in Western art. Diego Velázquez, The Toilet of Venus (The Rokeby Venus), 1647–51. Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London. Image via the Sapiens Verbum print shop. 🖼️ Get this painting as a print → Quick facts Artist: Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) Date: 1647–1651 Medium: Oil on canvas, 122.5 × 177 cm Collection: National Gallery, London (NG2057), presented by the Art Fund in 1906 Nickname: From Rokeby Park, County Durham, where it hung for much ...

On the left, a pale, half-dressed Bacchus crowns a kneeling man with vine leaves. On the right, rough Spanish faces grin out at you with cups raised, as if the god had wandered into a Madrid tavern and decided to stay. In Diego Velázquez’s The Triumph of Bacchus , better known in Spain as Los Borrachos (The Drunkards), painted in 1628–1629 and now in the Museo del Prado, classical myth and street life share one canvas and refuse to apologise. Diego Velazquez, The Triumph of Bacchus (Los Borrachos) , c. 1628-1629. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid. 🖼️ Get this painting as a print → Quick facts Artist: Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) Date: 1628–1629 Medium: Oil on canvas, 165 × 225 cm Collection: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P001170) Notable fact: Paid for by Philip IV with 100 ducats; painted just before Velázquez’s first trip to Italy A young painter at court Velázquez was born in Seville in ...