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Still Crazy (for Velazquez) After All These Years
- Velazquez, Portrait of A Man, the pink in the lower left shows the thinness of the paint, as that is the original ground showing through. The frame is a 17th Century Spanish frame from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum.
On Monday, November 16 on a day when the estimable Metropolitan Museum of Art is usually dark several dozen members of the art press gathered for the unveiling of the newly restored and reattributed Portrait of A Man by Velazquez. The history of this modest sized painting is nearly as interesting as the work itself. Painted in the mid-1600s it is a late work of the artist and thus reflects his full maturity as an artist. This is most important in light of how the work is NOT painted. More on that further on.
Having passed into history for more than 140 years in the early 1800s the painting wound up in the collection of the illegitimate son of King George II of Britain. By the early 20th Century it had made its peripatetic way to America where it would be cleaned and restored, nearly ruining its provenance in the bargain. By the 1950s art historians were calling it “from the school of Velazquez” and so it stood even after being bequeathed to the Met in the early 1950s. The Met stood by the designation and began exhibiting the work as a “school piece” where it stayed on display for the last 20 years.
- The press attendees reading about the restoration and the provenance of the Velazquez.
Seemingly a “typical” work of the period the museum felt no need to question further the parentage of the painting. Finally in 2009 the conservators of the Met decided to take a fresh look. What they discovered would shock and delight them and I would hope the viewing public. The previous “restorations” done in the early 20th century had added paint to areas that Velazquez never intended and the thick discolored varnish further obscured the restoration missteps leaving the work dark and impenetrable. By all appearances it was a typical work of the Old Masters done in the style of Velazquez.
In the painting itself, a gaze outward, head and shoulders study of a man, the face has all the characteristics of the Old Masters style. The skin tones, hair, moustache, beatific light, are seen in many such master works of the period. It is when one leaves the face that the future of art is revealed.
- Keith Christiansen, John Pope-Henessey Chairman of European paintings at the Met makes a few remarks. The man on the left is Michael Gallagher, the conservator for the Met who restored the Velazquez, while the man on the far right is Jonathon Brown, esteemed art historian and the man who certified the work as a genuine Velazquez.
The background, not dissimilar to then current style, is however in contrast, as it is not the dark, mottled background one associates with Old Masters works but light and sketchy, almost thin enough to be a watercolor. The body of the subject is rendered in a few swift strokes showing the marks of the under painting where the artist blocked in details. This finished work by Velazquez foreshadowed the work of Impressionism by 200 years proving that while Velazquez was a man of his time he was also very much a man ahead of his time. It just took art historians a few years to catch up with the Master. I for one am happy they did.
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Looks amazing. Great post!