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"Las Meninas", Diego Velasquez's portrait of a Spanish princess and her entourage

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is one of (if not THE) most widely discussed painting in Western Art.

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Every viewing raises more questions and every answer is followed by a dense network of meanings.

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It is not only a high point of realism in painting, a perfect lifelike depiction of the Spanish Court,

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it is also a complex meditation on painting itself.

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It is a spellbinding work that is concerned with how we view a painting, and how the subjects in a painting view us.

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Velasquez was 57 years old when he painted this, and had been the court painter for over 30 years.

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But in this painting - for the first time - e includes himself among the courtiers,

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painting a Monumental canvas 10 and 1/2 ft tall by 9 ft 
wide.

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The same size as the actual painting that the painted canvas is shown within.

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But who is he painting? The infanta? The King and Queen of Spain? Or is he painting you looking at him?

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Early in his career, Velasquez produced several of these "kitchen" or "Tavern" scenes, known in Spanish as "Bodegones".

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They showed Ordinary People in ordinary settings, often with hidden allegorical meaning.

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When he was just 18, he painted this extraordinary work, which shows a precocious talent

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for capturing the everyday moment and clearly shows his immense skill in depicting different materials and textures,

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as well as his mastery of light and Shadow on both opaque and reflective 
surfaces.

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The detail of the eggs frying in hot oil is a masterclass.

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This painting which was probably painted to show off his skills, became his calling card to the Royal Palace.

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Here, the water dripping down the Jug demonstrates his astonishing ability to create an almost photographic reality.

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Common people were always treated with dignity by the artist and his early paintings not only showed a supremely confident technique and attention to detail, he gave workers a gravitas in his paintings.

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Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, was born in 1599 in Seville, to a family with plenty of intellect but little financial means.

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Precocious talentedd, he began a six-year apprenticeship when 
he was 12 years old,

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with the painter Francisco Pacheco, learning classical techniques of painting.

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But the young artist quickly moved away from Pacheco's old-fashioned stiff style, towards a new dramatic naturalism inspired by Caravaggio and his followers.

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There is no evidence he saw caravaggio's work in person,

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but he knew the work of Pieter Aertsen, a Dutch painter accredited with 
he invention of the Monumental genre scene,

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which combines still life and genre painting, and often 
includes a Biblical scene in the background.

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Almost like a split screen effect. Velasquez 
painted several of these types of scenes,

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and he is clearly already experimenting with illusion, 
with the picture within a picture.

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Something he will perfect later in Las Meninas.

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In 1623, two years after Philip IV came to the throne in Spain at the age of 16,

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Velasquez, who was already being 
talked about in the right circles,

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was summoned to Madrid to paint a portrait of the king which 
we think is this one.

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It was an immediate success, and he was pronounced "official painter to the king" on the spot,

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with a promise that no one else should portray the king without his permission.

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A remarkable achievement for such a young man, and one which awakened jealousy from the other court painters.

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Philipe IV of Spain and Velasquez were linked together like no other patronage in art history.

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He first painted him at the age of 24 and 33 years later this painting would 
be his last of the king.

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Their relationship was unusually close for a monarch and his painter,

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and the King often came to Velasquez while he was painting in his Workshop - just for a quick chat.

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It has been said that the principal motivating force in Velasquez's life, was the desire to be a nobleman,

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and he would remain attached to the court for the rest of his life, where step by step he would Ascend through the hierarchy of Court appointments.

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Working his way up to a Knighthood, and he used Las Maninas to prove that he should be considered as a Noble.

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At the same ime he is painting his Masterpiece, a committee are deciding whether he can be made a knight of the order of Santiago, in other words be ennobled.

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There is a reason he has put himself in one of his paintings for the first time - on an equal footing with Spanish royalty.

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It is so important to understand that a painter in 17th century Spain and elsewhere, was considered as just another crafts person, like a carpenter.

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In other words, a manual worker. And like most most Court painters he 
had many other jobs.

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Velasquez was also the "Royal Chamberlain", a job that involved looking after 
the palace, buying firewood, bedding, and Crockery.

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He had a key to every room in the palace and we 
can see here, hanging from the painters belt,

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the symbolic keys of his court offices of which he 
was inordinately proud.

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He was also the curator of the King's galleries, responsible for negotiating 
the purchase of hundreds of Works.

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In fact, almost every Titian you see today in the Prada, was bought 
by Velasquez, on trips to Italy.

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The artist had a long life, but only produced between 110 and 
120 known canvases.

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He produced no etchings or Engravings and only a few drawings are attributed to him.

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This all ties into his two enormous, but mutually exclusive, ambitions.

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He wanted to be seen as the greatest painter of the Spanish court

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but he also wanted to go down in history as a great gentleman.

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The problem was that throughout his time in the palace, his close friendship with the King, meant he had his enemies in the court,

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who were determined to stop his rise through the ranks.

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Philipe became king in 1621 at the age of 16 and heir to the Hapsburg art collection in Madrid.

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In a court that commissioned not only paintings but poetry and theatre too. We often talk about the "Golden Age of Spain",

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and it was a time when great palaces were being built and culture was 
flourishing, with among others: El Greco, Velasquez, Zurburan, Murillo and Cervantes.

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But Philip IV was in trouble for much of his rule.

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Mainly because of long drawn out expensive Wars, revolts, revolutions, 
and trouble in the colonies.

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But also because of genetics and inbreeding.

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For two centuries the Hapsburg Kings had married first cousins, nieces, and aunts.

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Resulting in an onslaught of physical 
and mental ailment

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s, because of their limited gene pool.

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The distinctive "Hapsburg jaw" we see on 
Philip IV was inherited from earlier Hapsburgs,

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and likely the result of the Royal Family's inbreeding.

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Despite the Spanish Colonial Empire, the country was almost continuously in financial difficulties,

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and had declared bankruptcies in 1647 and 1653.

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The Spanish royal family was so broke that they 
often couldn't afford firewood to heat the palace, or bread for the tables.

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In fact, when Velasquez died, the crown still owed him 17 years of salary payments.

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And yet, what does las meninas portray?

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A wealthy family dressed in the finest clothes money can buy surrounded by gloriously attired servants in an ornate and Sumptuous setting.

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Like all Royal portraiture, it is a form of propaganda designed to 
show a courtly audience dynastic stability and Imperial wealth.

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But one thing Philip IV can't disguise is the lack of a male Heir.

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He is on his second marriage by the time of this painting.

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He had 10 children with his first wife, Isabelle de Borbon, but only one son and Heir.

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His wife died in 1644. And then in 1646, their son died.

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A year later, in a hurry to create a new son and Heir, he married 
his 14-year-old niece, Marianna - when he was 44.

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She gave him five children, but only two survived 
to adulthood.

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A daughter, Margarita Theresa, born in 1651 - the infanta in Las Maninas, who sadly would die in her teens,

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and the Future King Charles II of Spain who was born 5 years after Las Meninas.

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Charles however, was severely disabled, thanks to inbreeding,

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and he would be the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs.

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Velasquez's position at the court gave him unique access to the Royal collections,

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and he would naturally be influenced by The Works he saw every day.

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He also visited Italy at least twice, on 
extended trips to buy paintings for Philipe IV,

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and to study the great Masters.

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He was accompanied on these trips by his enslaved assistant a notable painter in his own right, Juan de Pareja,

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who would be given his freedom by Velasquez shortly after he painted this beautiful and dignified portrait in 1650.

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The work's extraordinary lifelike quality, so astonished the papal court, that he was asked to paint Pope InnocentX

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, one of the painter's best and most psychologically insightful Works, 
which has been described as "a symphony in red".

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It is said that when the pope saw his portrait 
completed, he exclaimed somewhat bewildered: "Troppo Vero" - "too truthful".

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The influence of contemporary 
Italian artists, can be seen in Velasquez's mastery of perspective, and his rendering of the male nude in this large canvas,

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he painted while in Rome.

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It was Titian and Peter Paul Rubens, who would have more 
influ

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ence than any other artist on the development of his style,

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and in particular his Royal portraits.

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Where, in some cases, we can clearly see stylistic similarities between the great Masters.

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This early Titian painting hung in the Spanish Royal Palace when Philip IV came to power

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and was used as the standard by which all other Royal equestrian portraits would be judged.

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And this, spectacular 
life-sized equestrian Portrait by Velasquez of Philip IV

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was clearly influenced by Titian and Rubens, not only in its Simplicity of pose

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but also in its depiction of the King as a restrained and powerful ruler.

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Velasquez's portrait however is livelier, more elegant and uses a lighter pallette,

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and doesn't rely on a highly charged background.

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The Flemish painter Rubens, even visited the Spanish Court of Philip IV in 1628.

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He was actually on a diplomatic Mission, but still managed to paint five 
portraits of Philipe,

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while he was there.

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He became great friends with Velasquez and encouraged him to 
go to Italy to study the Italian Masters to move away from chiaroscuro,

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to be looser in his brush work, and to adopt a brighter palette colour.

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Rubens was not only a successful painter, but he was also 
an important Diplomat who had been knighted despite his humble background.

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The ambitious Velasquez, saw Rubens as a role model, and through him he found someone he could identify with.

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It was Titian's late works that inspired both Rubens and Velasquez.

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Titian used sketchy and Loosely applied brush work, and he would drag and smudge paint over the canvas

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to suggest the form, rather than using definitive Strokes.

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He also used a very thick rough weave for his canvases, that gave texture to 
his surfaces.

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Velasquez would do the same.

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Maybe less well known is the influence of Sánchez 
Coello and Antonis Mor, who were in The Royal collection,

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and would also be important to how Velasquez
helped Philipe IV Forge a calculated image of power and piety.

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Probably the biggest influence on 
Las Maninas though, was a painting from two centuries earlier, "The Arnolfini Portrait: by Jan Van Eyck,

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that I discussed in my earlier video.

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This too was in the collection of Philip IV, and Velasquez 
would pass it every day on the way to his Studio.

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Like Las Meninas, the Arnolfini portrait also has a mirror positioned at the back of the pictorial space,

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reflecting two figures who would have the

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same point of view as we do.

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It also plays with pictorial space, reflections and illusion.

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Not only in art but also in literature.

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For example, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, is itself a complex multifaceted picture of the relationship between reality and illusion.

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Velasquez used a very coarse canvas, and he didn't use many preliminary sketches that we know of,

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but rather, he painted directly onto the canvas.

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As we can see with these x-rays 
he often changed his work as he was painting it,

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and these changes are known as "pentimento"

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Velasquez was so experienced by the time of Las Meninas, that the work has very few changes, apart from his self-portrait,

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which initially turned his head more towards the infanta.

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For much of his early career, the artist used a red ground for underlayer, good for building up contrast and tonal values

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- the lights and the darks.

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But by the time of Las meninas, he had a much 
looser style,

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and diluted his pigments to make them more translucent and fluid, and he painted quite thinly,

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so this necessitated using a neutral grey ground, which allowed for a much wider tonal range, greater luminosity,

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and a general silvery range of colour.

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This was unusual at the time, as 14:21
most canvases were primed using dark colours.

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He would paint "alla Prima" or wet-on-wet, where layers 
of wet paint are applied to existing layers of wet paint, often finishing his paintings in one session.

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With a painting of this size and complexity, that would not be possible, and we can see one example

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in the infanta's sleeve, where although it is mostly wet-on-wet, areas of highlights have been dabbed 
on later in thick impasto, to create texture.

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With Velazquez, you are always aware
that you are looking at paint.

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He doesn't try to hide his brushmarks - quite the reverse.

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By the time he came round to Painting Las Meninas,

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his technique was at its freest and most fluid,

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it is often called a precursor to impressionism,

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but it's more than that.

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Here, the silver of the tray on 
which the Menina holds the ceramic container

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is achieved with a couple of flicks of white paint,

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and the flowers are just a few slashes of red.

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We often talk about Chiaroscuro, the extreme contrast 
of light and dark,

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when we talk about Velasquez, and comparisons are often made with Caravaggio.

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He painted his most technically Caravaggio-like picture, "Christ after the flagellation', early on.

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But later, he used a more subtle variation of chiarascuro. Still using light to direct our vision but more subtly.

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As we can see when we look at Las Maninas in greyscale.

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Velasquez uses a dark colour 
palette for Las Meninas, mostly neutral colours and quite limited,

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and yet he manages to get a broad 
range of tones with just whites, Blues, yellows, ochres, and small touches of red,

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that help draw 
15:59
your eyes around the painting towards ke

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y points of interest.

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Velasquez even lets us know which colours 
he used, as the palette that the painter holds in his left hand,

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has the very pigments he used on Las Maninas.

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Between 1640 and 1660, Velasquez mostly painted single portraits.

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The composition and structure of Las Meninas was extremely complicated,

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and with so many characters it's really like the staging of a piece of theatre or performance art.

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It needed to be carefully planned out, with every character seen,

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as well as being seen.

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In Velasquez's hands, they are fully realised individuals.

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Thanks to the 18th century art historian, Antonio Palamino, 
who wrote a 1724 book on Spanish painters,

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we know quite a lot about the people in Las Meninas,
including their names.

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Palomino spoke to Velasquez 's colleagues after his death,

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as well as four of the nine people pictured in the painting.

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Most of the members of the Court are grouped around the 5-year-old infanta, Margarita Teresa,

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who is attended by two Maninas - or maids in Waiting.

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María Agustina Sarmiento, who is passing her water in terracotta pots (so it could be summer).

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and Isabel de Velasco, who seems to be in mid-curtsy.

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Velasquez had painted the princess 
many times,

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but unfortunately she would die before she was out of her teens.

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She is in the centre 
of the painting, with the central axis pas

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sing between her eyes.

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Her face is spotlit by light

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coming from an unseen window - top right,

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and her white satin dress glows as she is bathed in the sun.

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It is the princess's presence that makes this a "political painting", as at the time the infanta was the only child of Philipe IV,

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with the dynastic succession resting on her tiny shoulders.

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Showing her as a healthy and beautiful princess is important for future marriage prospects.

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We don't know the name of the dog, but we know the breed is a Spanish Mastiff, which were bred as guard dogs.

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There are few artists with such skill in painting animals as Velasquez!

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The dog is being nudged awake by Nicolas Pertusato, an Italian dwarf and Court Jester.

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Next to him, is the Austrian dwarf Maria Bárbola, who is depicted in an unusual way for a person in her position at the time.

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People with dwarfism, were considered curiosities,

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as little more than "pets", but Velasquez always gave 
dignity to characters who, due to their profession or condition,

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we

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re treated as lesser beings.

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He shows Maria standing upright, beside the princess.

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She has a thoughtful and controlled expression, and is looking directly at us - or the royal couple.

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Velasquez entered the service of the 
18:44
palace as a royal servant

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and initially was considered a worker, just like the dwarves of the court,

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or the jesters. And so he treated them with an empathy, not seen before in Royal portraits.

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He never mocked them or caricatured them, and often made them the focal point, as fully fleshed out humans.

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In the shadows, this woman is Doña Marcela de Ulloa, the infanta's chaperone,

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and she is in mid-conversation with an unidentified bodyguard.

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At the rear is Don José Nieto Velázquez, brother of the artist,

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and the Queen's Chamberlain. Velasquez had possibly painted him before.

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He has paused at the door, pulling back the heavy exterior curtain,

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with one foot resting on a step while his weight 
is on his other leg on a different step.

00:19:27.712 --> 00:19:30.209
As the Queen's attendant he was required to be at hand to 
open and close doors for her.

00:19:32.349 --> 00:19:35.124
We don't know however if he is coming or going, but the light certainly 
pulls us in,

00:19:38.074 --> 00:19:41.165
and it looks as if he will usher all of us, out from the created world and into the real world.

00:19:44.501 --> 00:19:47.321
In this masterpiece of Illusion,

00:19:50.141 --> 00:19:52.636
Velasquez clearly goes beyond the physical confines of space, 
by playing with implied spaces, in this case the rest of the palace.

00:19:54.926 --> 00:19:56.883
Velasquez himself is pictured 
emerging from behind the canvas,

00:19:58.753 --> 00:20:00.682
moving into our gaze from the shadows into the light,

00:20:02.382 --> 00:20:05.101
as he looks at us in the implied space looking at him in the pictorial space.

00:20:08.001 --> 00:20:11.854
He is supremely self-confident and 
certainly no subservient courtier.

00:20:13.381 --> 00:20:16.055
He is proudly holding the tools of his trade, his Palette is 
turned towards us showing its colours

00:20:18.665 --> 00:20:21.099
he also holds a mahlstick, used for steadying the hand 
when doing close work.

00:20:23.429 --> 00:20:26.334
And the long round brushes we know he used which created soft edges rather than hard lines.

00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:31.905
His brush is dipped in paint and perhaps he is considering whether to add some finishing touches,

00:20:34.495 --> 00:20:36.697
but it is also possible that the first stroke has not yet been applied.

00:20:38.527 --> 00:20:42.044
His hand is just a flurry of rapid brush strokes and it would appear to be metamorphosing into his brush,

00:20:45.414 --> 00:20:46.818
as his flesh becomes instrument.

00:20:48.818 --> 00:20:51.041
It is audacious that a servant, albeit a courtier and Royal favourite,

00:20:53.265 --> 00:20:55.032
has given himself greater prominence than his master.

00:20:56.832 --> 00:21:00.405
But it is also inconceivable that Philip IV did not give the concept his Blessing in advance.

00:21:04.090 --> 00:21:06.582
In the same way the Queen's Chamberlain is opening 
up the implied space beyond the picture frame,

00:21:08.792 --> 00:21:10.548
the mirror here is reflecting the opposite direction,

00:21:11.938 --> 00:21:13.351
forward into the viewer's space.

00:21:14.831 --> 00:21:17.532
The reflection is of King Philip IV and Maria of Austria, the 
King and Queen.

00:21:20.138 --> 00:21:22.609
We know it is a mirror, and not a painting, as everything else is muted and fuzzy,

00:21:24.729 --> 00:21:28.272
whereas the image of the king and queen is bathed in light in the beveled mirror giving them an almost divine presence.

00:21:32.392 --> 00:21:34.879
That is if we believe the King and Queen are in the same room as the other characters.

00:21:41.239 --> 00:21:44.072
The aforementioned historian, Palamino, noted that the mirror which shows the royal couple, was actually a reflection,

00:21:46.892 --> 00:21:49.172
not of the real monarchs in the room, but of the canvas Velasquez is working on.

00:21:51.453 --> 00:21:53.221
In other words, the couple are not in the room.

00:21:55.161 --> 00:21:57.145
This idea is disputed though, as the reflection is not logical.

00:21:59.215 --> 00:22:03.439
It has to be said though, this is not the first time Velasquez has painted an image which explores the relationship between reality, reflection, and image,

00:22:07.869 --> 00:22:10.972
and which flouts the laws of

00:22:11.012 --> 00:22:13.063
Optics. Here too, we see the mirror with this rather blurred reflection.

00:22:15.033 --> 00:22:17.029
The constant speculation as to what is happening in this painting,

00:22:19.026 --> 00:22:21.639
who is where, and why, is absolutely intentional on the part 
of Velasquez.

00:22:24.099 --> 00:22:28.652
Whatever the study of perspective or reflection tells us, the Royal presence is still the most plausible explanation for the outward glances of the characters,

00:22:33.282 --> 00:22:37.356
and I think that the King and Queen ARE in the room, and the mirror IS a reflection of them at the far end of the room,sitting for Velasquez.

00:22:41.526 --> 00:22:44.953
The fact that the Queen's Chamberlain is opening the curtain to the Palace, 
sugests that the royal couple are preparing to exit.

00:22:48.028 --> 00:22:49.920
This would explained the infanta's gaze towards her parents.

00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:54.082
Velasquez, who seems to be peeping out of the darkness realising 
his time is up,

00:22:56.522 --> 00:22:59.558
and the Manina to the right of the infanta, who is beginning to curtsy, as she 
looks towards the couple.

00:23:02.658 --> 00:23:04.568
There is a palpable sense of anticipation in the air.

00:23:06.318 --> 00:23:09.388
If the king and queen are there, and I think they are, then Velasquez has one more trick up his sleeve.

00:23:12.238 --> 00:23:14.165
He has placed the king and queen outside of the pictorial space,

00:23:15.845 --> 00:23:18.366
standing exactly where we the commoners 
would stand, when we view the paintings.

00:23:21.336 --> 00:23:23.351
We are standing right next to King Philipe IV of Spain!

00:23:29.525 --> 00:23:31.908
With this painting, Velasquez was out to prove that painting was a noble, intellectual art,

00:23:34.228 --> 00:23:35.597
and Las Maninas would be evidence.

00:23:36.966 --> 00:23:38.921
It is in fact, a portrait about the painting of a 
portrait.

00:23:40.699 --> 00:23:42.157
Let's start with the physicality of the space.

00:23:43.807 --> 00:23:46.521
The building was destroyed by fire 
in 1734, but the historical plan still exist.

00:23:49.031 --> 00:23:52.470
Las meninas was painted in the Cuarto del Príncipe, or the 
king's quarters, in the Alcazar in Madrid.

00:23:56.020 --> 00:23:57.205
Which is the room depicted in the work.

00:23:58.365 --> 00:24:02.012
It was once part of 
the apartment occupied by the Crown Prince Don Baltasar Carlos, who had died in 1646.

00:24:05.412 --> 00:24:07.961
Once the painting was finished it was planned to be placed in that same room.

00:24:10.376 --> 00:24:13.605
An inventory of the room, proved 
that everything Velasquez painted, was really there (apart from the mirror in the back).

00:24:16.965 --> 00:24:18.785
The illusion starts with the almost life-size figures.

00:24:20.625 --> 00:24:22.800
The painting is enormous, coming in at over 10 ft by 9 ft.

00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:29.067
The room had these wonderful high ceilings, and the shutters have been placed by Velasquez to 
reveal slivers of light exactly where he wants it.

00:24:33.071 --> 00:24:35.000
The main light source is from an invisible window 
to the right

00:24:37.040 --> 00:24:40.249
, and another source is the door at the back, that illuminates the figure and sends a pencil thin beam across the floor.

00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.419
While Las Meninas is clearly a royal painting, it stands out from 
other court paintings,

00:24:48.929 --> 00:24:51.775
because the piece was intended to hang in a private room rather than displayed publicly.

00:24:54.535 --> 00:24:58.728
It may look formal to us nowadays, but compared to other Royal portraits, Las Meninas is fairly spontaneous, casual, and relaxed.

00:25:02.803 --> 00:25:06.897
There is a LOT in this painting; people, animals, Reflections, 
25:07
paintings on the wall, textures, other objects, and movement

00:25:10.992 --> 00:25:13.999
- and yet, there is a cohesion to the 
canvas, because it is organised in an orderly composition.

00:25:17.072 --> 00:25:20.031
It is balanced perfectly with the 
relatively quiet top half against the busy bottom half.

00:25:23.080 --> 00:25:25.170
The figures occupy a clear horizontal strip 
across the painting,

00:25:27.350 --> 00:25:29.770
but it isn't frieze-like, as they are at different depths into the view.

00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:33.618
The first layer is the canvas, the dwarf, and the dog.

00:25:35.536 --> 00:25:36.901
Then we have the infanta and her maids.

00:25:38.265 --> 00:25:40.087
And then Velasquez, the chaperone and the bodyguard.

00:25:41.927 --> 00:25:44.283
The layering continues throughout the picture, and beyond 
the picture frame.

00:25:48.191 --> 00:25:52.188
The painting features several frames; the frame of the room in which they are all standing,

00:25:52.658 --> 00:25:55.307
the frames of the paintings on the wall, the frame of the canvas Velasquez is working 
on,

00:25:58.127 --> 00:25:59.826
the frame of the mirror, and the frame of the door in the background.

00:26:01.816 --> 00:26:03.666
These frames provide a 
strong linear and geometric theme to the painting.

00:26:05.766 --> 00:26:06.691
You get a feel of structure and organisation.

00:26:08.891 --> 00:26:11.173
But, a perfect perspective is not essential to our understanding of this painting,

00:26:13.433 --> 00:26:15.141
any more than a 
perfect understanding of optics.

00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:18.696
What is the focal point? Well there are several possibilities.

00:26:20.433 --> 00:26:24.296
Just look at the picture as a whole, and you notice your eye scans around the canvas, as it would do in any large space.

00:26:28.410 --> 00:26:30.682
We ricochet from one figure to another.

00:26:31.342 --> 00:26:33.952
Possible Focus points are the man in the 
doorway, the infanta, or the reflection of the King and Queen.

00:26:36.563 --> 00:26:39.001
It seems at first glance that Velasquez is drawing all our attention to the infanta,

00:26:42.051 --> 00:26:44.800
and he has used some clever and subtle techniques to draw 
attention to her in such a busy scene.

00:26:47.399 --> 00:26:50.258
There is the dress of course, but also she faces towards the main light
source coming from the right,

00:26:53.328 --> 00:26:55.043
while most of the other figures are facing away from the light.

00:26:56.550 --> 00:26:59.907
Maria Augustina is looking directly at her, and the characters to the left nudge us towards the infanta.

00:27:04.087 --> 00:27:07.166
We do know that this painting was not intended to be on public View 
and was really considered a private possession of the king

00:27:10.306 --> 00:27:11.845
- for an audience of one.

00:27:12.305 --> 00:27:14.290
Which would suggest the focal point is the reflection of the king?

00:27:16.350 --> 00:27:19.197
The focus is STILL highly debated 
and always wil

00:27:22.197 --> 00:27:26.666
l be, but the vanishing point is not. It comes from José Nieto, as he stands in the staircase, more specifically the crook of his arm is the exact vanishing point.

00:27:31.876 --> 00:27:33.636
THIS is the key to Velasquez's 
mastery of Illusion.

00:27:36.076 --> 00:27:39.136
He uses realism, light, and structure, to pull together the disparate elements 
in an exquisitely balanced painting.

00:27:42.136 --> 00:27:45.398
It is an image so complex, that he could only have achieved it at 
this later stage of his life,

00:27:48.528 --> 00:27:50.629
with the extensive knowledge he has picked up from a lifetime of painting.

00:27:56.639 --> 00:28:00.244
The two paintings on the back wall are important symbolically, and represent two oil paintings by Rubens, Velasquez's role model.

00:28:03.834 --> 00:28:06.577
And show scenes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses".

00:28:06.647 --> 00:28:08.488
There is a good reason they are there.

00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:12.050
If we remember that Velasquez wants desperately to raise his 
profession from "Tradesmen" to "Artistic nobility".

00:28:14.870 --> 00:28:17.786
They tell the tale of the superiority, the nobility, 
and the Divine calling of the artist.

00:28:21.366 --> 00:28:23.306
In which Mortals prove themselves more skilled than even 
the gods.

00:28:25.246 --> 00:28:27.555
Rubens was the most influential Flemish artist of the 17th century,

00:28:29.864 --> 00:28:33.133
so by linking himself with Rubens, Velasquez is showing that he had reached the highest tier in European art.

00:28:39.843 --> 00:28:42.126
One of the great enigmas in the portrait of Velasquez, is the Red Cross on his tunic.

00:28:44.410 --> 00:28:47.792
It is the heraldic symbol of the order of Santiago,

00:28:47.802 --> 00:28:49.711
a religious and Military order, founded in the 12th 
century.

00:28:51.620 --> 00:28:54.414
He had petitioned the king to make him a knight of Santiago for years, to secure Noble status,

00:28:57.760 --> 00:29:00.346
citing the link between artistic nobility and social nobility.

00:29:02.806 --> 00:29:05.034
But the committee of the order 
of Santiago refused - due to his bloodline.

00:29:07.234 --> 00:29:08.888
It was rumoured that his grandparents were Jewish converts.

00:29:10.428 --> 00:29:13.559
Luckily for Velasquez, as well as being employer and employee, he and Philip IV were close friends,

00:29:16.579 --> 00:29:19.428
and he was finally inducted in the order in 1659, a year before his death,

00:29:22.528 --> 00:29:25.857
after the king obtained a dispensation from the Pope to overrule doubts as to the artist's blood and trade.

00:29:30.187 --> 00:29:33.241
Diego Velasquez, in many ways was unremarkable, apart from the fact he was appointed court painter.

00:29:35.791 --> 00:29:40.350
He had one wife, one Friend (the King), and one Studio (the palace), and spent his whole life climbing the social ladder.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:47.280
His Knighthood is the culmination.

00:29:48.340 --> 00:29:51.755
What makes makes this cross in the painting interesting, is that he was knighted a full 3 years after Las meninas was finished,

00:29:54.999 --> 00:29:59.048
and a year before he died, which means that the cross was painted on the artist's tunic years after the painting was created.

00:30:03.388 --> 00:30:08.149
Tradition had it, that after the artist's death, Philipe IV 
himself painted the Red Cross of the Knights of Santiago on the tunic, but that's unlikely.

00:30:12.769 --> 00:30:16.957
After the painting was cleaned in the early 1980s it was revealed that the brush work of the cross is uniform with the rest of the surface,

00:30:21.146 --> 00:30:23.010
so it was almost certainly Velasquez 
who painted the cross.

00:30:24.980 --> 00:30:30.417
We can only imagine the immense satisfaction the artist got from adding 
the cross to the painting, and therefore rubbing the snobby courtier's noses in the fact that he was now one of them.

00:30:37.642 --> 00:30:39.743
Velasquez, who was in essence, born a trades person, died a wealthy Noble.

00:30:41.844 --> 00:30:46.616
On his death it is said that the King was heartbroken, and the great friendship that had united them, is evident in three words that the Monarch wrote

00:30:51.516 --> 00:30:55.859
in a memorandum after his death: "I am shaken".

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Transcript by Margarida Mariz