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- 1. Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)
Portrait of Juan de Pareja, 1650
Oil on canvas - 81.3 x 69.9 cm
New York, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art
Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art - See the image in its page
Fifty three years after the Metropolitan Museum acquired Diego Velázquez’ Portrait of Juan de Pareja (ill. 1) at Christie’s in November 1970 for a record price of £2,310,000 ($5,544,000), the museum has mounted “Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter in the age of Velázquez” a decidedly untraditional exhibition curated by Met curator David Pullins and guest curator Vanessa K. Valdés of the City College of New York, devoted to the subject of Velázquez’ masterpiece - a mixed race slave (previously misleadingly described as the painters servant) who, once set free, became a successful and accomplished painter on his own.
Born around 1608, Pareja was acquired by Velázquez in the early 1630s, accompanying the artist during his second visit to Italy in 1649-51 to purchase art for the collection of Phillip IV and to paint the portrait of Pope Innocent X. The Metropolitan portrait has long been blithely described as a "warm up" before the artist painted the Pope but instead seems to have been something of a calling card designed to proclaim his talents and astonish rivals and potential clients, which he accomplished when the picture was exhibited at the Pantheon with paintings by other artists, whose works were dismissed as merely art, while the Pareja was lauded as “truth”. During his time under Velázquez, Pareja must have established himself as a talented assistant and painter in his studio and in while in Rome, Velázquez set Pareja free, in a document where the latter is chillingly described as “the property” of the artist. Once back in Madrid, the newly freed Pareja soon establishing himself as an independent artist in Madrid, where he was well-regarded before his death in 1670.
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- 2. Juan de Pareja (c. 1610-1670)
The Flight into Egypt, 1658
Oil on canvas - 168.9 x 125.4 cm
Sarasota, The John and Marble Ringling Museum of Art
Photo: The John and Marble Ringling Museum of Art - See the image in its page
Despite this, Pareja the painter remains frustrating out of reach, known only from commission and work documents while details of this personal life are unknown and his surviving works are scanty. Pullens catalogued just fourteen autograph pictures and only five of them are included in the exhibition, revealing an artist of considerable accomplishment. Particularly notable is the Flight Into Egypt (ill. 2) from The Ringling Museum, Sarasota, bought by founder John Ringling in 1925 and long the only picture by Pareja in an American collection, and Pareja’s two most important and impressive works, the monumental, luscious Baptism of Christ (ill. 3) of 1667 (sent by the Prado to a small regional museum in the 19th century and recalled by them last year) and the Prado’s equally remarkable Calling of Saint Matthew (ill. 4) of 1661, unlike anything painted by Velázquez, set in a luxurious well-appointed office and featuring a standing self-portrait. For years this was the only picture by Pareja known to the public, inspiring Arturo Schomburg, the leading American historian of Black culture during the “Harlem Renaissance” of the 1920s to make a pilgrimage to see it, his enthusiastic essay on the picture remaining the only extensive article on the painter in English for many years. Following the exhibition it is likely that more Parejas will be rediscovered in provincial Spanish museums and the art market as the catalogue includes an appendix of two dozen pictures attributed to the artist (autograph our not) which are untraced and known from unillustrated 19th and 20th century auction catalogues.
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- 3. Juan de Pareja (c. 1610-1670)
The Baptism of Christ, 1667
Oil on canvas - 229 x 139 cm
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Photo: Museo Nacional del Prado - See the image in its page
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- 4. Juan de Pareja (c. 1610-1670)
The Calling of Saint Matthieu, 1661
Oil on canvas - 225 x 325 cm
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Photo: Museo Nacional del Prado - See the image in its page
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- 5. Claudio Coello (1642-1693)
Saint Catherine, c. 1664-1665
Oil on canvas - 218,4 x 154,9 cm
Dallas, Meadows Museum
Photo : Meadows Museum - See the image in its page
The sparce number of Parejas paintings needed context. Complimenting this core of five paintings, the exhibition veers off into artistic subdivisions encompassing the Catholic conversion of Muslim and African peoples within Spain and the unsettling revelation, stressed by the museum, that many of the most beautiful decorative works of sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain including lusterware pottery, exquisite silver wares and the polychromy of the sculptures were products of slave labor. The florid baroque exuberance of painting in Madrid embraced by Pareja in The Baptism of Christ (which seems a repudiation of the sober realism of Velasquez and is largely unfamiliar outside of Spain) is further represented by the magnificent Saint Catherine by Claudio Coello from the Meadows Museum (ill. 5).
Here are also depictions of people of color to in 17th century Spanish painting including two masterpieces by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo of The Marriage at Cana from the Barber Institute, Birmingham and Three Boys (The Water-Seller) from the Dulwich Picture Gallery and three nearly identical kitchen paintings of a Kitchen Maid by (and attributed to) Velázquez.
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- 6. Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)
Portrait of a Man, possibly a self-portrait, c. 1635
Oil on canvas - 68.6 x 55.2 cm
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo: Public
domain - See the image in its page
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- 7. Possibly by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)
Portrait of a man, c. 1650
Oil on canvas - 69.2 x 56.5 cm
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo: Public domain - See the image in its page
It must be admitted that Velázquez’ shadow hangs heavily over the show especially in the byway devoted to “Velázquez and Pareja in Italy” with seven portraits Velázquez painted in Rome and Madrid where the of Pareja dominates an impressive group including a little known finished study for the Portrait of Innocent X from the Wellington Museum, London, the recently conserved probable self-portrait (ill. 6) and a newly attributed portrait of an unknown man from the Met (ill. 7), the portrait of the mild-mannered Cardinal Camillo Astralli from the Hispanic Society New York, and a vividly rendered head of a young woman from a private collection which as a group threaten to steal the show from Pareja the painter.
Curators : David Pullins and Vanessa K. Valdés.
David Pullins and Vanessa K. Valdés, Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter in the age of Velázquez, Yale University Press, 176 pp, $50. ISBN : 9781588397560.
Practical information: Metropolitan Museum, 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York. Open every day except Wednesday from 10 am to 5 pm, Fridays and Saturdays until 9 pm. Admission: $30 ($22 and $17, reduced rates).