Story

The Studio in Madrid

Madrid in the 1650s: the king's court painter, the assistant he freed, and what that assistant painted next.

Each of the 4 paintings in this story is a puzzle. Solve them to reveal the paintings and read how each one leads to the next.

Velázquez spent almost forty years as court painter to Philip IV of Spain. His last portraits of the king's young children are counted among his finest work.

Source: Wikipedia

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In Rome in 1650, Velázquez painted his enslaved assistant as a warm-up for a portrait of the Pope. That November, still in Rome, he signed a letter setting him free.

Sources: Wikipedia: Juan de ParejaWikipedia: Diego Velázquez

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The artists knew each other

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Once free, the former assistant stayed in Madrid and worked as an independent painter for the rest of his life, using everything he had learned in the royal painter's workshop.

Source: Wikipedia

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The artist, painted

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Velázquez's loose, confident brushwork went on to teach painters who were born two centuries after him, from Manet to Picasso.

Source: Wikipedia

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A visual echo

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