Did Velazquez's slave paint these?
February 28 2017
Picture: Metropolitan Museum
In his Art Newspaper review of a new show on Velazquez portraits at the Met, Prof. Jonathan Brown wonders if the above picutres are in fact by the artist's slave, Juan de Pareja. Pareja began to works as Velazquez's assistant in 1631. He was granted his freedom in 1650.
Brown's review contains this superb line, which I shall commit to memory:
Nothing is more subjective than the attribution of a painting and nothing is more essential than the debate over authorship.
