The Calling of Saint Matthew

Juan de Pareja signed and dated this very large canvas in 1661, seven years after his freedom took effect. He had been born in Antequera in southern Spain around 1608 and was enslaved in the household of the court painter Diego Velázquez, where he spent years doing the manual work of a painting studio while Spanish rules of the day kept enslaved people out of the profession. Velázquez signed papers freeing him in Rome in 1650, with the release taking effect in 1654, and Pareja then built a career of his own in Madrid. The subject comes from the Gospels: Christ arrives at the tax office and calls the collector Matthew to follow him. Pareja worked his own likeness into the gathering and placed his signature on a sheet of paper held there, which reads as a claim to be counted as a painter rather than a servant. This is the largest and best known of his surviving works. It was in the Spanish royal collection by 1746, when it was recorded at the palace of La Granja, and it now hangs in the Museo Nacional del Prado.