Las Meninas

Velázquez painted Las Meninas in 1656 for King Philip IV, in a room of the royal palace in Madrid that the king had given him to use as a studio. He had been in royal service since 1623, and by this date also held senior household offices that took up much of his time, so finished paintings from his last years are few. The people in it are members of the royal family and their attendants, and most of them can be named from palace records, which is unusual for a picture of this kind. Velázquez was made a knight of the Order of Santiago in 1659, three years after the painting was finished; an early account of his life says the king had the order's red cross added to his figure afterwards. Fire destroyed the old palace in 1734 and the canvas was rescued but damaged, after which a court painter repaired it and repainted part of the young infanta's face. It entered the Museo Nacional del Prado when the museum opened in 1819 and was first catalogued under its present title in 1843. Artists have circled back to it ever since: in 1957 Pablo Picasso alone worked through fifty-eight variations on it.