Juan de Pareja

- Blurb -

A provocative study of a freedman painter that recognizes the labor of enslaved artists and artisans in seventeenth-century Spain Diego Velazquez' s (1599-1660) portrait of Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608-1670), his enslaved studio assistant, has long been a landmark of European art. It was painted in 1650, the same year that Velazquez signed papers freeing Pareja, who then built his own successful career as a painter of religious subjects and portraits. This book-the first monograph on Pareja-revises our understanding of artistic production during Spain' s Golden Age and discusses Pareja' s ties to both Velazquez and the Madrid School of the 1660s. Highlighted works include Pareja' s monumental Calling of Saint Matthew (1661); Velazquez' s portraits produced in Rome shortly after Juan de Pareja (1650); and the manumission document granting Pareja his freedom. The essays focus on highly skilled, enslaved artisanal labor within Seville' s multiracial society; the role of Black saints and confraternities in the promotion of Catholicism in enslaved populations; and early twentieth-century scholar Arturo Schomburg' s project to recover Pareja' s legacy. The book also includes an illustrated and annotated list of known works attributed to Pareja.