Finally, a Velázquez for the Getty
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| Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares, about 1626. Getty Museum |
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| Paulus Pontius (engraver) and Peter Paul Rubens (designer) after Diego Velázquez, Allegorical Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares, 1626. The Prado |
The painting was likely a diplomatic gift to cardinal Francesco Barberini, who visited Madrid in 1626. During the 20th century, it was in the Coppellotti collection in Asti, Italy. An unidentified collector bought it in 2025. It came to the attention of Salvador Salort-Pons, who was organizing an exhibition of Olivares' portraits for the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Salort-Pons made the case for the painting's autograph status in the Prado's ARS magazine (in Spanish). There's an English summary in a July 2026 feature in ARTnews.
X-rays show reworking of the shoulder and ear, and a sword hilt that was painted out. Rubens' sketch for the print shows Olivares in a fur-lined black garment (rather than armor), and the X-ray appears to show traces of the fur. This suggests that Velázquez replaced the original costume with armor, and Rubens had access to the painting both before and after the change.
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| Missing rivet in painting and restored rivet in Pontius-Rubens engraving (reversed) |
At lower right, on the armor's left shoulder, is a missing rivet. Velázquez paints the hole. Salort-Pons calls this "an imperfection to capture the viewer's attention and emphasize his technical virtuosity." Another artist—such as Rubens and Pontius in the engraving—would have painted a rivet that wasn't there. Salort-Pons says this argues against the possibility that a talented copyist created the painting from the engraving. Why would they leave out a rivet that is in the engraving?
The Getty portrait measures 23-5/8 by 18-7/8 in. There are only about 120 Velázquez paintings extant, of which 50 are in the Prado. There are no other Vélazquezes on the West Coast. Back in 1971, Norton Simon was underbidder on the portrait of Juan de Paraja—which went to the Metropolitan Museum and is one of its star European paintings.
In 1981 the Kimbell bought a full-length Velázquez portrait from the Wildensteins. That was just before J. Paul Getty's estate was settled, making his museum the world's richest.
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| Diego Velázquez, Ferdinando Brandani, 1950. The Prado |
Around 2003 the Getty briefly displayed another Wildenstein picture, Velázquez's portrait of banker Ferdinando Brandani (then known, incorrectly, as "the Pope's Barber"). It's said the asking price was $36 million. But the museum never came to a deal. In 2004 it was announced that the Prado had bought it for $27.4 million. Getty watchers wondered why a museum said to have more money than God lost out to an underfunded institution with more Velázquezes than God.
"I wasn't surprised to hear that the museum didn't buy it," wrote Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times. He blamed "a failure of institutional will" under Getty CEO Barry Munitz. Meanwhile the Prado's Gabriele Finaldi explained: "We don't think you can have enough Velázquezes."
The Olivares picture seems a significant step up from the Brandani. Getty painting curator Davide Gasparotto told ARTnews: "It's not easy to find works that are the level of quality that we aspire to."
Portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares will be shown this fall in the Getty Center's East Pavilion. After that it will at appear at the Detroit Institute of Arts for "Velázquez & Olivares: Early Years at Court" (Jan. 24 to July 25, 2027). That show will bring together six portraits of Olivares, four by Velázquez.
This has been a banner year for paintings by big art-historical names in L.A. Newly on display are major works by van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, and Francis Bacon (LACMA); Frida Kahlo (Lucas); and at the Getty, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Marguerite Gérard/Fragonard, Philippe de Champaigne—and soon, Velázquez.
Comments
> institutional will" under
> Getty CEO Barry Munitz.
That failure was partly because Munitz needed compensation for his living-large lifestyle.
I read awhile ago he's on the board of trustees of the Broad Museum. If so, they better be careful their expansion project don't end up with missing funds.
agpressoffice@doj.ca.gov, October 2, 2006:
Attorney General Bill Lockyer today issued a report that finds the J. Paul Getty Trust’s (Trust) ex-president, Barry Munitz, violated his legal duty when he used Trust employees to run his personal errands, and concludes Getty trustees improperly allowed use of charitable funds to pay the travel expenses of Munitz’ wife and buy gifts of artwork for retiring board members.
Every time I go it seems the Prado has lassoed another loan on show from somewhere. I recall the one there that that was among the Velázquezes from my section: "Camillo Astalli, Known As Cardinal Pamphili," ca. 1650–51. Oil on canvas, 24 x 19 1/8 in. (61 x 48.5 cm). Coll. The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY
> celebrate
Hey, Ted G, how are the rubes in NYC doing?
> wrote Michael Kimmelman
> in the New York Times.
The list of cities below makes LA and its LACMA, over 60 years ago and still today, really odd man out. That's why the technical, operational and aesthetic shortcomings of the Geffen are so exasperating.
NYTimes.com:
The [Getty] trust was a posthumous invention of the moneymen and politicos who took over the estate, knew next to nothing about art and distrusted a museum to handle hundreds of millions of dollars. Things were set up so that the Getty Museum had to compete with other divisions of the trust for resources - a research center, a conservation institute and a grant program, which acted as a meal ticket for innumerable institutions and scholars, who in turn became noticeably reticent to second-guess the Getty.
Is it too late to be great? That was the mantra 150 years ago, before the creation of all the great American museums, from Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Chicago to Baltimore, Minneapolis, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Fort Worth, Texas.
Even the Met's founders figured it was too late to compete with the royal and aristocratic European collections. So the Met showed plaster copies at first. Modeled after the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851, and in a mid-19th-century progressive spirit of cultural welfare and social improvement, the Met conceived its mission as the advancement of middle-class taste and the improvement of local art and design. But by the turn of the last century, the Met realized that collecting was still very much possible, that the museum could aspire to be among the world's greatest.
The [Getty] museum branched into areas like photography and illuminated manuscripts but stayed clear of modern painting and sculpture and non-Western art. The new collections were sublime, but there was no logic or consistency and no clear mission. Meanwhile, with its Orwellian, disconnected administration, the Getty, at staggering cost and at little or no obvious benefit to the general public, directed millions to new programs.
Didn't know about the early history of the Met. As for the original Getty villa in Malibu, before the campus by Richard Meier had been built, I recall a display set up in such a non-professional format (the arrangement of objects, mounts, etc), that I realized some of the museum's overseers weren't up to the task. It looked like something that I, a non-expert in museum format and logistics, would have put together. But hopefully I'd have realized I screwed up, ripped it down and had someone with drafting-crafting ability work on it.
Pros: surface rendering of the armor shows off Velazquez's skill set
... Like this picture better than the Met's "Juan de Pareja." That one has a better backstory. This one has a better color story.
--- J. Garcin
Re This one has a better color story. Juan de Pareja has an intentionally limited palette..the choice is intentionally magnificent. Still, I do prefer his Innocent X Pamphilj, at the Doria Pamphilj Gallery.
"Juan de Pareja" is the finest Spanish picture east of the Mississippi..the finest one in this country is in your section.
--- J. Garcin
Alas, there are many pictures that will never leave Spain. I love especially "The Feast of Bacchus," (a.k.a. "los Borrachos"), ca. 1629:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Bacchus