Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

The tone of the original is a touch less yellow than it appears in the catalogue illustration. The canvas is unlined but has been recently re-stretchered and a strip lining added. There are five old damages patched to the reverse and an area of bitumen blistering around his head which is probably the result of later 19th century restoration. The paint surface is secure if a little thin in the lower right darks of his dress, most notably on his right arm. Inspection under UV light reveals retouchings to the aforementioned damages, to the hair and scattered elsewhere. Offered in a plain wooden slip frame.
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This tenebrous and subtly rendered portrait of Philip IV of Spain's Pintor de cámara, Diego de Silva y Velazquez, was painted by the sitter's son-in-law Juan Bautista del Mazo, probably in the early 1650s. For historical reasons the painting can be dated with a great deal of certainty to the years 1644 – 1659, on account of the key that is tucked into Velazquez's belt. This key was the symbol of two roles undertaken by Velazquez in the household of the King, one of them Ayuda de cámara, which he began in 1644, and the other Aposentador real, which was inferred on him 8 March 1652. Furthermore, the portrait must have been executed prior to 1659, the year Philip IV bestowed upon Velazquez the distinguished Order of Santiago which, as a cross around his neck, Velazquez would wear in all subsequent portraits and that is here noticeably absent. As Ismael Gutiérrez Pastor has argued, certain elements of Velazquez's dress, such as the italianate collar, would point towards an execution date nearer 1652 than 1644, after the return from his second trip to Italy from 1649-51.

The identity of the sitter as Velazquez rests on a favourable comparison with other portraits of him, in particular the only fully accepted self-portrait in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia which is dated circa 1640.¹ In the present portrait the fuller-faced Velazquez would seem to be approximately a decade older than the Valencia self-portrait, a supposition that accords well with Gutiérrez Pastor's dating of it in the early 1650s.

Juan Bautista del Mazo entered Velazquez's workshop in 1633, the same year he married his daughter Francisca. His career came to be seen as a small-scale repetition of his illustrious father-in-law's and indeed from the moment of his entering the employ of Velazquez he was considered the most adept hand in the workshop. Mazo himself, after being appointed Ujier de cámara and Ayuda de la furriera, followed in his master's footsteps to become Pintor de cámara in 1660.

1.  See F. Checa, Velazquez. The Complete Paintings, London/New York 2008, p. 173, no. 61, reproduced.