Velázquez in Pasadena
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| Diego Velázquez, Queen Mariana of Austria, 1652-53. Prado, Madrid |
Simon wasn't the first to connect Old Spain and New California. That was already a subtext of real estate pitches touting a Mediterranean climate and Spanish revival homes. (The parallel was always to Old Spain, not to the New Spain south of San Diego.) The comparison gained currency in 1915's rival world's fairs, held in San Francisco and San Diego. The Panama-California Exposition saw the development of San Diego's Balboa Park as a museum mall. Long after the fair closed, the Churrigueresque San Diego Museum of Art claimed a special mission to collect Spanish art. It was remarkably successful, thanks to the Putnam sisters, Amy and Anne. Naturally the museum acquired a Velázquez, and the artist was enshrined in a sculpted portrait in Balboa Park's decoration. Only the latter is still on view. Scholarship determined that the San Diego painting was only a copy.
Ditto for San Francisco. The Kress Foundation gave the SF Fine Arts Museums a small copy of the Queen Mariana now in Pasadena, cropped to bust length. But it's not from Velázquez's hand and is rarely on view.
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| Diego Velázquez, Juan de Pareja, 1650. Metropolitan Museum |
Simon saw his chance to buy a genuine and worthy Velázquez in 1971. It was the portrait of Juan de Pareja, Velázquez's Moorish slave, that had been in a private British collection and offered at auction. It was made in Rome, at the apex of Velázquez's career. Simon bid aggressively, but he dropped out just before of the final bid of $5.5 million with fees. The top bidder was the Metropolitan Museum. Britain was unable to block its export at that price, and it became one of the Met's signature European paintings.
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| Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Pedro de Barberana, about 1631-33. Kimbell Art Museum |
A decade later, Fort Worth's Kimbell Museum bought an early, full-length Portrait of Pedro de Barberana from the Wildensteins for $6.4 million.
J. Paul Getty's estate was settled the following year, in 1982. Suddenly the Getty Museum had the power to buy almost anything. Velázquez would have been on anyone's wish list. Unfortunately, nothing comparable to Pedro de Barberana—much less Juan de Pareja—has come on the market since.
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| Diego Velázquez, Ferdinando Brandani, 1650. Prado |
It appears that the Getty came close to buying a Velázquez at least once. In the early 2000s a European collector offered a small bust-length painting, then known as "The Pope's Barber," to the Getty for a reported $36 million. The subject has since been identified as a banker, not a barber, named Ferdinando Brandani. The Getty briefly displayed it as a loan in the Brentwood museum but did not come to a deal.
It was later reported, in early 2004, that the portrait had sold to the Prado for $27.4 million. Gabriele Finaldi, the Prado's associate director, explained: "We don't think you can have enough Velázquezes."
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| Detail of Velázquez's Queen Mariana |
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| John Singer Sargent, Las Meninas, after Velázquez, 1879. Lucas Museum of Narrative Art |
Though always revered in Spain, Velázquez fell into obscurity elsewhere until the late 19th century. Then his painterly technique became an essential point of departure for artists such as Manet, Whistler, and Sargent. Collectors took note. Henry Clay Frick bought a great portrait of Philip IV and left instructions recommending that his museum purchase the famous Pope Innocent X, should it ever come on the market. (It hasn't.) Even George Lucas fell under the spell. His museum bought John Singer Sargent's spirited copy of Velázquez's Las Meninas.
Still later interpretations of Velázquez by Picasso and Francis Bacon have made him seem modern in ways that few 17th century artists are. The Queen Mariana was painted in Madrid after the artist returned from the Roman sojourn that produced Juan de Pareja and Pope Innocent X (model for Bacon's "Screaming Pope"). Queen Mariana showcases the virtuoso brushwork that impressed Manet and an icy pink-and-neutral palette.
The NSM secured Queen Mariana's loan thanks to its greatest Spanish painting, Zurbarán's Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose. The Zurbarán was lent to the Prado in early 2024, and this loan is reciprocation.
At the NSM Queen Mariana is given plenty of space. She is accompanied by other works in the Simon collection, both by Spanish painters Zurbarán, de Ribera, and Murillo and by Rubens, Poussin, Guercino, and Guido Reni, who were also avidly collected by the Spanish royals.
"Mariana: Velázquez's Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado" runs through Mar. 24, 2025.
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| Installation view with Francisco de Zurburán's Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633, at left |
Comments
Much has been written about how the £50 million paid by the Getty and the National Portait Gallery was too much for a Reynolds and that no Reynolds had ever sold for anything close.
Art historians, such as Neil Jeffares, complained endlessly how this £50 million was an erroneous valuation.
Now, over the weekend, the Financial Times has reported that Steve Schwarzman has bought Reynolds magnificent full-length portrait of Lady Worsley for £25 million. It was a private sale and the work will not be exported from the UK.
The article mentions how the market for such works is so thin and, as such, price discovery is near impossible.
Another good example of how institutions, like the Getty and NPG, should shut out the noise of the media and critics and pay whatever is necessary (and what they can afford) when such masterpieces as Omai and Juan de Pareja come up for sale.
William Wood, “Joanna de Silva,” 1792, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Ruben C. Cordova. Purchased in 2020, this painting is identified on a label as “an exceptionally rare independent likeness of an identifiable Indian woman by an eighteenth-century English artist.” The label notes that de Silva was a native of Bengal and served as “a nursemaid in the family of an officer with the British East India Company. She later accompanied an orphaned daughter of the family to England…” Additionally, the Met recently purchased “Portrait of a Mughal Woman” by another British artist, Francesco Renaldi, which is not yet on view.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/846945
Per their webpage:
...Hispanic Society’s three canvases. His life-sized Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares (ca. 1625-26), with its dynamic composition and political symbols is juxtaposed with the charmingly intimate Portrait of a Little Girl (ca. 1638-1644), which the artist kept in his personal collection. From his second trip to Italy there is the small portrait of Camillo Astalli, known as Cardinal Pamphili (1650-1651).
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These works travel frequently to the Prado.
https://bocamuseum.org/art-experience/exhibitions/splendor-and-passion-baroque-spain-and-its-empire
To avoid disappointment, never visit Rome without first checking that "Innocent" is on the wall. They rent it out like it's a B & B.
In a recent Times write-up, a Sotheby’s official recounted Aso's way of operating at auctions: "When I decide I’m bidding on something, it’s mine already."
Thank goodness Getty blinked on "Juan de Pareja." It's a landmark of Baroque art. And we have it for New York.
N.B.- Tavitian just gave the Clark so much art, they need a new wing.