Word: parejas
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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...paint the portrait of Pope Innocent X. The artist was out of practice; he had done no heads for some years. So, to get his hand in, Velásquez decided to make a portrait of his color grinder and studio hand, a husky mulatto slave named Juan de Pareja. Roman cognoscenti greeted it, according to one of Velásquez's contemporaries, "with admiration and astonishment," and from then on this aloof, brooding presence on canvas with the liquid black eyes remained one of the most admired, if least seen, of all Velásquez's portraits...
...Juan de Pareja is a remarkable painting, but it is not the best Velásquez. His Rokeby Venus at Britain's National Gallery, for instance, is far more important. Similarly, the Met's Aristotle is not the best Rembrandt. The dazzling prices such paintings fetch are merely reflections of the fact that there are few Old Masters left outside museums...