MASP

Velázquez was a student in Seville of painter and theorist Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644), who would become his father-in-law and mentor. His first works were scenes from popular and religious life inspired by the vigorous realism of Caravaggio (1571-1610). The support of Don Gaspar de Guzmán (1581-1645), Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful prime minister of King Philip IV (1605-1665), portrayed in MASP’s painting, garnered Velázquez an appointment as court painter, at the young age of 25. MASP’s portrait therefore represents a particularly important moment in the career of this artist, who transformed not only the artistic taste of the Spanish court but also the European painting of his time. In the portrait, Olivares displays numerous symbols of power: the large key, the two spurs on his belt and the long gold chain, symbolize his status as Sumiller de Corps and Caballerizo Mayor, titles received by the minister in 1622, which gave him unrestricted access to the king’s chambers; the red cross of the order of Alcántara on his chest symbolizes his belonging to the highest rank of Spanish nobility; the opulent mustache and well-trimmed beard are signs of careful personal grooming and an affirmation of masculinity. Velázquez’s held the position of “Valido del Rey,” the king’s right hand, the true owner of the kingdom.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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A commonplace comparison in political historiography of the 17th century involves the comparison between count-duke of Olivares (1587-1645) and his French rival, cardinal-duke of Richelieu (1585-1642). This comparison, amply commented by Elliot (1984), is justified both by the similarity of several circumstances, programs, and strategies that supported political actions, and by their comparable stature as men of State. In García de Salazedo Coronel’s lengthy panegyric of Don Gaspar de Guzmán, count of Olivares and duke of San Lúcar la Mayor, the poet listed the following titles: “Comendador Mayor de Alcántara, del Consejo de Estado y Guerra and Cavallerizo Mayor del Rey Nuestro Señor” (apud Camesasca 1987, p. 106). The list of titles also included that of Knight of the Order of Calatrava, bestowed on him when he was only five years old, to which he renounced in 1625. Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel was born in Rome to Spanish ambassador Don Enrique de Guzmán and Doña María Pimentel Fonseca, members of the high Castilian aristocracy. His education oriented to religious life, given that he was not the oldest son in the family, led Gaspar to attain a degree in Law, Theology, and Art from the University of Salamanca in 1604. His older brother’s death followed by the death of his father, in 16oy, prompted him to give up the religious career he had entered as prebendary in Seville, at the same time that he became the only heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Spain. On account of his high qualifications, the count-duke of Olivares became a favorite adviser to Philip IV, who raised to the Spanish throne in 1621, at age 16. In 1623 the count-duke was appointed prime minister, grand camerlengo, and chancellor of the Indies, positions that secured for him absolute control of the state for twenty years. In 1643, two years before his death, he was removed from his position and sent to exile in Toro, in the north of Spain, where he was submitted to humiliating investigation by the Inquisition. The count-duke of Olivares undertook his last major attempt at Spain’s political and economic rehabilitation. The relative exhaustion of colonial riches in combination with the declining Spanish industry and trade; the separation from Portugal in 1640; the obstinate separatist ideals in Catalonia and Andalusia; the distress and hardship inflicted on Spain by the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648); in short, the unsuccessful domestic policies and so-called “Austriacism,” i.e., the intended reunification of Europe under the Hapsburg, conferred on the count-duke’s 20-year rule a tragic content, even if not deprived of a greater historical significance, due to its inescapable character and its imperial aspirations. Just as Philippe de Champaigne was the portraitist of Richelieu, Velázquez was the par excellence portraitist of the count-duke of Olivares. The portrait in the Masp Collection, Portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares, whose original commission receipt dated 1624 (Mélida 1906) is still conserved, opens a series of at least five extant portraits of the count-duke. In this portrait, the sitter is wearing a red cross medal of the Order of Calatrava, to which he never actually swore pledge, and to which he renounced in August 1624 for incompatibility with the decoration he was about to receive from the Order of Alcántara, the green ribbon of which appears in subsequent paintings (López-Rey 1996, p. 70). In December 1624 Velázquez signed the receipt for the payment of this portrait with the following wording: “I, Diego Velázquez, painter of His Royal Highness, hereby acknowledge the payment of 80o reales from Señor Juan Cenoz, according to the money order hereby mentioned, and the receipt of said amount from the hands of Lope Lucio de Espinosa, resident in Burgos, which amount I have received as payment of three portraits, of the king, of the count-duke of Olivares, and of Señor García Perez, I pledge to its truth and sign, in Madrid, December 4 1624” (Mélida 1906; López-Rey, loc. cit.). The portrait of the great professor of Law at the University of Salamanca and member of the Castile Council, Don García Perez de Araciel, who died precisely in 1624, widowing Doña Antonia Ipeñarrieta y Galdós (possibly the author of the triple commission) did not survive. A question could be raised as to whether the portraits of both, Philip IV, currently at the Metropolitan Museum, of New York, and the count-duke of Olivares, at Masp, were originally conceived as pendants, given their similarities. Camesasca argues that if this were the case, the count-duke’s head should be turned in the direction of the king’s picture. Both canvases have nearly identical dimensions; both personalities are planted on space in nearly identical manner, in identical scale, the right hand resting on the sword handle, their legs and feet equally positioned; and both paintings feature the same black satin covered diagonally by gold chains on a dark brown background. Particularly notable is the fact that both are wearing the same greenish-gray golilla that, according to the book Historia del luxo y de las leyes suntuarias de España (Madrid, 1788, apud López-Rey), by Juan Sempere y Guarinos, was introduced in Madrid and immediately became the vogue, in January 1623. However, if viewed in terms of their evident contrasts, the two characters might constitute a diptych of opposing qualities, where the nearly-choreographic elegance of one was to contrast with the heavy build of the other, one’s nobleness, with the other’s power. In the count-duke’s portrait, everything effectively conveys the idea of power: his hand on the table and the other, holding the sword, show an ostensive possessiveness and freeze the figure in its own frontality. The gold spurs hanging from the count-duke’s gold chain are emblematic of his title of Cavallerizo Mayor del Rey, while the huge gold key designates his status as chief chamberlain of the Royal Chamber. But these enormous objects, as well as the rhetoric they distill (in contrast with the delicate paper leaf the young king is holding), function not as simple attributes but as threatening signs of a protective war shell and stress the impression that the sitter takes by assault and occupies the space of his portrait. Evidently, the small size of the sitter’s head, particularly when compared to his rhomboid, tremendously bulging body, attracts special attention. More than being small-sized, the count-duke’s head bears an impassive countenance that imparts on the viewer the same impression described by Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), during his visit to Madrid in 1626, when he saw the portrait of cardinal Francesco Barberini that Velázquez had just finished painting: “con malinconia e aria severa”. In reality, the stylistic manipulation of the figure tends to render an effect of transference of the expressive focus, from the facial features to the body and its “objects”, in such a way that the sitter appears more as an object of power than as the expression of an individuality. It seems nearly as if Velázquez sought to produce in this painting a synthesis of his experiences as portraitist and still-life painter. Finally and perhaps above all, the young 24-year-old painter had an amazing capacity to behave as a pure painter before the very presence of absolute power; to understand and bring to light the potentiality of this architecture without ever conceding to the encomiastic genre. A quality the young artist successfully maintained untouched throughout his career.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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