DIEGO DE SILVA VELASQUEZ

DIEGO DE SILVA VELASQUEZ (1599-1660), greatest of Spanish painters, born at Seville, of Portuguese family; studied under FRANCISCO HERRERA, who taught him to teach himself, so that but for the hint he was a self-taught artist, and simply painted what he saw and as he saw it; portrait-painting was his forte, one of his earliest being a portrait of Olivarez, succeeded by one of Philip IV. of Spain, considered the most perfect extant, and by others of members of the royal family; specimens of his work are found in different countries, but the best are in Spain, in Madrid, and they include sacred subjects, genre, landscape, and animal paintings, as well as portraits.