Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670)

Juan de Pareja looks straight toward you, with his body turned slightly aside and one hand held across his middle. The white collar catches the light, but the small highlights around his eyes keep bringing your attention back to his face. The background offers almost nothing to distract you. Diego Velázquez paints the lace edge loosely beside the more carefully shaped mouth. Velázquez made the portrait in 1650 while the two men were in Italy. Pareja, a man of African descent, was then enslaved in the painter’s studio and household. Within months, Velázquez signed a document providing for Pareja’s liberation by 1654. Pareja went on to develop a successful painting career in Madrid. The man looking back at you was an artist himself. His own career continued beyond the years represented in this portrait. The turn of the shoulders and the hand against the dark clothing belong to an image that Velázquez made during Pareja’s enslavement, before that independent career began.