Portrait of a seated jester (Sebastian de Morra?). Diego Velázquez
1645, oil on canvas, 106.5 × 81.3 cm
Madrid, Museo del Prado
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Porträt eines sitzenden Hofnarren (Sebastián de Morra?). Diego Velázquez
1645, Öl auf Leinwand, 106,5 × 81,3 cm
Madrid, Museo del Prado
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The Portrait of Sebastián de Morra is a portrait by Diego Velázquez of Sebastián de Morra, a dwarf and jester at the court of Philip IV of Spain. It was painted in around 1645 and is now in the Prado in Madrid.
Velázquez portrays his whole body, sitting on the ground, wearing a rich cloak and with his short legs pointing forward in an inelegant position reminiscent of a marionette. He looks directly at the viewer, motionless, making no hand gestures, suggesting a denunciation of the court's treatment of himself and other dwarfs.[1] This suggestion, however, is precisely that and represents the view of an individual critic and may have little to do with the actual composition of the painting. While Velázquez's naturalistic and charitable depictions of the invalids and dwarfs maintained by the court strongly suggests he, as court painter, felt some empathy with their situation, the painter's opinions are not known in any documented fashion.[2]
References
Andreas Prater, “The Baroque” in The masters of western painting, Taschen, 2005, page. 270, ISBN 3-8228-4744-5
For a representation of a court dwarf in Medici Court, see Niccolò Cassana.
External links
Velázquez , exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this portrait (see index)
