Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez (baptized 6 June 1599 – 6 August 1660) was the leading painter at the court of Philip IV and of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Seville, he was apprenticed in 1611 to Francisco Pacheco, whose daughter Juana he married in 1618. His first pictures were kitchen scenes, among them The Waterseller of Seville.

Philip IV sat for him on 30 August 1623, and Velázquez entered royal service. He spent 1629–1631 in Italy, then painted The Surrender of Breda (1634–1635) for the Buen Retiro palace. The Rokeby Venus, his only surviving female nude, dates from the 1640s.

On a second Italian trip in 1649–1651 he painted Pope Innocent X and Juan de Pareja, whom he freed in 1650. He painted Las Meninas in 1656, and received the Order of Santiago three years later. He fell ill in 1660 and died in Madrid.