Select the image to zoomPortrait of a Little Girl
ca. 1638-44
Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)
Oil on canvas
51.5 x 41 cm
The Portrait of a Little Girl is one of Velázquez's most immediate and engaging works, combining naturalism and intimacy in a way characteristic of the best Golden Age portraiture. In fact, the picture's intimacy, directness, and subtle brushwork place it among the most remarkable creations of seventeenth-century naturalism, even as the artist evokes a universality far beyond simple representation.
The identity of this little girl remains a mystery. Many have raised the possibility that she is one of Velázquez's granddaughters, although this cannot be established definitively. In particular, it has been pointed out that at his death, Velázquez left an unidentified portrait of "a young girl" in his studio, which his only son-in-law, Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo, declined to describe further. Significantly, the inventory of his studio does not identify her as Velázquez’s granddaughter or Mazo's daughter. This does not deny the possibility that the portrait depicts the artist's granddaughter; it only means that such an identification remains a hypothesis, albeit a tantalizing one.
Text and images © Hispanic Society of America.