Juan de Pareja

Juan de Pareja, painted by Diego Velázquez in Rome in 1650, is one of the most celebrated portraits in the history of Western art. Its subject, Juan de Pareja, was Velázquez's enslaved assistant of Moorish descent, whom the artist portrayed here with a dignity and psychological presence rarely afforded to a person of his station in seventeenth-century Europe. Velázquez freed Pareja shortly after completing the portrait, and Pareja himself went on to become an accomplished painter in his own right.

Painted to test Velázquez's skills before undertaking a papal commission, the portrait so astonished contemporaries that, according to legend, it was exhibited publicly in Rome and universally judged to be more alive than art. Velázquez's fluid, economical brushwork captures Pareja's steady, assured gaze and the rich textures of his collar and cloak with breathtaking immediacy, epitomizing the Spanish master's unrivaled command of paint.

Held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this museum-quality stretched canvas reproduction is printed on premium matte canvas and hand-wrapped around a solid 0.75-inch gallery wrap frame — ready to hang and built to last.