Baroque / Spanish Golden Age · Spanish · 1599–1660

Diego Velázquez

Velázquez was the greatest Spanish painter of the 17th century and spent most of his career as court painter to Philip IV in Madrid. Las Meninas, his masterpiece, remains at the Prado alongside the bulk of his surviving work. His technique — loose and fluid up close, miraculously convincing at distance — was a direct inspiration for Manet, Sargent, and Bacon.