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Portrait of the Jester Calabazas

c. 1631–32

Diego Velázquez

(Spanish, 1599–1660)

Spain, 17th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 199.3 x 133.1 x 12.7 cm (78 7/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 in.); Unframed: 175 x 106 cm (68 7/8 x 41 3/4 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1965.15

Location

212 Baroque Painting and Sculpture

Did you know?

Calabazas holds a wind-driven pinwheel and a miniature portrait of a woman, together suggesting the inconstancy of love.

Description

Calabazas, a jester in the court of King Philip IV of Spain, had physical and mental disabilities, a state that the artist emphasizes, rather than tries to hide. While the Spanish court prized and doted upon people with disabilities such as Calabazas, Velázquez transformed their depiction in portraiture. This startling work uses the format of the formal, full-length court portrait to present a type of person who was generally perceived as marginal at this point in history and profoundly humanizes him.

Provenance

ca. 1631-32 - until at least 1808

Royal Collections (Palacio del Beun Retiro, Madrid)

- possibly 1863

Private Collection (Great Britain)

by 1867 - 1872

Jean-Gilbert-Victor Fialin, Duc de Persigny, 1808-1872 (Paris, France) (sold, Hotel Drouot, Paris, April 4,1872, as "Le Fou," for 750 francs

by 1881

Maurice Cottier (died 1881), (Paris, France, and Château Cangé, Touraine.

by 1906 - 1915

Sir George Donaldson (1845-1925) London, England, and Brighton, England, sold to Herbert Frederick Cook, 1915.

1915-1939

Herbert Frederick Cook, later 3rd Baronet, 1868-1939 (Richmond, England), by inheritance to Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 1939.

1939-

Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Baronet, 1907-1978 since 1956 (sold, Christie's, London, March 19, 1965, lot 104, through Thomas Agnew & Sons (London, England) to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

1965-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Curtis, Charles Boyd. Velazquez and Murillo; A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Works of Don Diego De Silva Velazquez and Bartolomé Estéban Murillo. London, United Kingdom: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883. Reproduced: p. 33, no. 75

Justi, Carl, and A. H. Keane. Diego Velazquez and His Times. London, United Kingdom: H. Grevel & Co, 1889. Reproduced: p.438

Lafond, Paul. "Des Portraits de fous, de nains et de phenomenes." La Revue de l'Art Ancien et Modern XI (January-June, 1902): 226-227. Mentioned: 226-227

Brockwell, Maurice W. "The Cook Collection, Part III." Connoisseur L (January, 1918): 8. Reproduced: p. 8. pl. XXIII

Moreno Villa, José. Velázquez. Madrid, Spain: Editorial "Saturnino Calleja", 1920. Mentioned: p. 38-40; Reproduced: p. 24

Brock, Maurice W. "Calabacillas, the Buffoon." Connoisseur LIX (February, 1921): 116-121. Mentioned: p. 116, 119-120; Reproduced: 121

Mayer, August L. Diego Velázquez. Berlin, Germany: Propyläen-Verlag, 1924. Mentioned: p. 74-75

Salazar, Juan Allende. Velazquez; des meisters gemälde in 275 abbildungen. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche verlags-anstalt, 1925. Reproduced: p. 30; Mentioned: p. 274

Cook, Francis, Maurice W. Brockwell, and Herbert Frederick Cook. Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart. London, United Kingdom: W. Heinemann, 1932. Reproduced: p. 59, no. 500, pl. XX

Justi, Carl. Diego Velazquez und sein Jahrhundert. Zürich, Switzerland: Phaidon-verlag, 1933. Reproduced: p. 705, pl. 25

Mayer, August L. Velazquez; A Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures and Drawings. London, United Kingdom: Faber and Faber, Limited, 1936. Reproduced: p. 104, no. 445, pl. 149

Mayer, August L. Velazquez. New York New York.: French Library of Fine Arts, French and European Publications, Inc, 1939. reproduced: p. 14

Ferrari, , Enrique Lafuente, J. R. Carey, and Neil MacLaren. Velazquez. London, United Kingdom, : G. Allen & Unwin ltd, The Phaidon press, 1943. Reproduced: p. 19, pl. 32

Trapier, Elizabeth du Gué. Velazquez. New York, New York: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1948. Reproduced: p. 115

Justi, Carl, and Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño. Velázquez y su siglo. Madrid, Spain: Espasa-Calpe, 1953. Mentioned: p. 704-706; Reproduced: fig. 193

Ortega y Gasset, José, Alfred E. Herzer, F. J. Sánchez Cantón, and C. David Ley. Velazquez. New York, New York: Random House, 1953. Reproduced: no. 67

Pantorba, Bernardino de. La vida y la obra de Velázquez; estudio biográfico y crítico. Madrid, Spain: Compañía Bibliográfica Espanñola, 1955. Mentioned: p. 92-93; Reproduced: p. 141, no. 32

López-Rey, José. Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre. London, United Kingdom: Faber and Faber, 1963. Mentioned: p. 52, 57; Reproduced: p. 264, no. 423, pl. 49

Museo del Prado. Museo del Prado: catálogo de las pinturas. Madrid, Spain: El Museo, 1963. Reproduced: p. 744, no. 1250

Camón Aznar, José. Velázquez. Madrid, Spain: Espasa-Calpe, 1964. Reproduced: p. 611, 1004; vol. II

"Year in Review 1965." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LII, no. 10 (November, 1965). Reproduced: cover

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 130 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 130 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 149 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Reproduced: p. 510; Mentioned: p. 511-513

Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio, Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, and Julián Gállego. Velázquez. New York, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. Reproduced: p. 20

Garín Llombart, Felipe Vicente, and Salvador Salort Pons. Velázquez. Milano, Italy: Electa, 2001. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 196-199

Tinterow, Gary, Geneviève Lacambre, and Deborah L. Roldán. Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. New York, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003. Reproduced: p. 451, fig. 10.49

Brown, Jonathan, and J. H. Elliott. A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2003. Reperoduced: p. 141, fig. 94

Museo del Prado, and Andrés Ubeda de los Cobos. Paintings for the Planet King: Philip IV and the Buen Retiro Palace. Madrid, Spain: Museo Nacional del Prado in association with Paul Holberton Pub, 2005. Mentioned: p. 88; Reproduced: p. 89, no. 8

Smee, Sebastian. Lucian Freud, 1996-2005. London, United Kingdom: Jonathan Cape, 2005. Mentioned: p. 13-14; Reproduced: p. 28

Iacono, Margaret. Masterpieces of European Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York, New York: The Frick Collection, 2006. Mentioned: p. 44-47; Reproduced: no. 8

Jeffett, William, and Suzanne L. Stratton. Dalí and the Spanish Baroque. St. Petersburg, Florida: Salvador Dalí Museum, 2007. Mentioned: p. 92-92; fig. 64

Lévy, Jean-Marc. Médecins et malades dans la peinture européenne du XVIIe siècle. Paris, France: L'Harmattan, 2008. Mentioned: p. 154-156, vol. I; p. 7, 132-133, vol. II; Reproduced: fig. 69

Checa Cremades, Fernando. Velazquez, the complete paintings. Antwerp, Belgium: Ludion, 2008. Reproduced: p. 100, fig. 28

Hirshler, Erica E., and John Singer Sargent. Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting. Boston, Massachusetts: MFA Publications, 2009. Reproduced: p. 19

Condo, George. "Feature." Apollo 18 (October 2011): 70-74. Reproduced: p. 71, fig. 5

Portús Pérez, Javier. Diego Velázquez: the early court portraits. Dallas, Texas: The Meadows Museum, 2012. Mentioned: p. 94-96; Reproduced: no. 4

Treasures of the Cleveland Museum of Art. London, United Kingdom: Scala Books, 2012. Mentioned: p. 190-191

López-Rey, José, Odile Delenda and Benedikt Taschen. Velázquez: The Complete Works. Köln: Taschen, 2014. Reproduced & Mentined: pp. 80-81, 98-99, 345-346, fig. 36

Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 183

Kientz, Guillaume. Velázquez. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux -- Grand Palais: Musée du Louvre, 2015. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 240-241, no. 67

Roglán, Mark A. Spanish Art in America. [Madrid, Spain: Ediciones El Viso, 2016. Reproduced: p. 80

Pavans, Jean. Le musée intérieur de Henry James. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2016. Mentioned: p. 100, 183; Reproduced p. xxx

Herdrich, Stephanie L. "Sargent, Art History, and the Critics." In John Singer Sargent . Per Hedstrom, editor, 107-122. Stockholm : Nationalmuseum, 2018. Reproduced: p. 110

Montanari, Tomaso. Velázquez e il Ritratto Barocco.Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2018. Reproduced: p. 242, pl. 142; p. 245, pl. 144 (detail); Mentioned: 241, 244

Roberts, Lynn. "Style Snapshot." Picture Framing Magazine 29, no. 6 (June 2018). Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 46

D. Aureliano de Beruete y Moret. "Exhibition of Ancient and Spanish Paintings at the Royal Academy." Connoisseur LVIII (December, 1920):188. Reproduced: p. 188

López-Rey, José, Diego Velázquez, Odile Delenda, and Benedikt Taschen. Velázquez: The Complete Works. 2020, 99, 345-346. Reproduced: pp. 99, 345; Mentioned: pp. 345-346.

García Serrano, Federico, and Diego Velázquez. Velázquez en 30 claves. Barcelona : Larousse, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 119

Exhibition history

Exposition Retrospective. Palais des Champs-Elysees, Paris, France (1866).

Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).

Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984).

Velazquez. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 3, 1989-January 7, 1990); Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain (January 29-March 30, 1990).

Velázquez, His Third Journey to Italy. Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome (March 28-June 30, 2001).

Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 25-June 29, 2003).

The Palace of the Planet King. Philip IV and the Buen Retiro. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain (organizer) (July 5-November 27, 2005).

Masterpieces of European Painting from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Frick Collection, New York, NY (organizer) (November 8, 2006-January 28, 2007).

Dalí and the Spanish Baroque. Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (organizer) (February 2-June 24, 2007).

Diego Velázquez: The Early Court Portraits. Meadows Museum, Dallas, TX (organizer) (September 16, 2012-January 13, 2013).

Velázquez. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 75008 Paris, France (March 25-July 13, 2015).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Portrait of the Jester Calabazas|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.15|author=Diego Velázquez|year=c. 1631–32|access-date=02 November 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Portrait of the Jester Calabazas

Portrait of the Jester Calabazas

Diego Velázquez

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