Diego Velázquez’s Expulsion of the Moriscos (1627) did not have the same lucky escape as Las Meninas (1656) when a catastrophic four-day fire broke out in Madrid’s royal palace in 1734. Las Meninas ...

The 17th century wasn't kind to Spain. The formerly powerful empire was crumbling, burdened by debt and a corrupt government. But while the kingdom was in decline, a young court painter was making his ...

Reporting from San Diego — Think of Spain’s Golden Age, and the paintings produced in Seville and Madrid in the 17th century by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez can crowd out everything else that ...

Like no other, Diego Velázquez inspired generations of European artists. His life and work are closely bound to the court of King Philip IV, who appointed him as court painter and on whose orders he ...

Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? When Italian Baroque artist Luca Giordano declared Las Meninas “the ...

A new exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum in New York traces the many folds of Spanish fashion from 1550 to 1700.

For over a year, climate activists in Britain have performed stunts in museums to draw attention to their cause. They’ve often damaged frames, and now appear to have damaged a painting, too. By Alex ...

Velázquez, Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608–1670), 1650. (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The Black figure is currently in a sustained spotlight. For some time now, curators, scholars, and critics have wrestled ...