Three figures at a table

In his important treatise Arte de la pintura, published posthumously in 1649, the Sevillian painter Francisco Pacheco (1564-1644) referred to the stories recounted by Pliny the Elder in the first century C.E. of ancient Greek painters who stunned and delighted the public with their compelling naturalism, in particular still life elements and everyday objects. He asked rhetorically:

‘Well, then, are bodegones not worthy of esteem? Of course they are, when they are painted as my son-in-law paints them, rising in this field so as to yield to no one; then they are deserving of the highest esteem. From these beginnings and in his portraits…he hit upon the true imitation of nature, thereby stimulating the spirits of many artists with his powerful example.’ ¹

The son-in-law to whom he referred was his former pupil, Diego Velázquez, apprenticed to him for six years from the age of twelve, who would raise the bodegón to new heights and cement its popularity for centuries, notwithstanding the staunchly entrenched artistic traditions of religious subject matter and noble portraiture which surrounded him as a young painter in Seville. It was these genres that had traditionally driven patrons to commission works from the city’s artists.

Driven by Dutch and Flemish examples, still life painting had begun to rise in status in Spain in the early 17^th Century, and two of Velázquez’s contemporaries, Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560-1627) and Juan van der Hamen (1596-1631), were masters of the genre. Named after the bodegas or taverns in which such scenes could be observed, the term bodegón came to refer not only to pure still lifes (which were often referred to as naturaleza muerta – ‘dead nature’) but to those with a human element. These were usually secular scenes but were often layered with further meaning.

The kitchen utensils and foodstuffs in these bodegones are quotidian in nature but in reality are carefully selected and placed; Velázquez paid close attention to these still life details and painted them with a mastery of colour and texture, but it was arguably the human component that most fascinated him. His subjects are often vivacious and spontaneous, and clearly painted from life, with the same models reappearing in multiple works. A strong Caravaggesque influence can be felt in the dramatic contrasts of light and shadow.

The present painting, often titled El Almuerzo (The Lunch), is a compelling example within this genre. Several versions of this composition are known, along with other prototypes of the same subject in different formats and settings. A work by Velázquez at the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (inv. no. 389), dated circa 1617, appears to be the earliest in this large group of versions and variants. It differs from the present work in its upright format and in the still life elements on the table; it also includes a cap, collar and sword hanging on the back wall. It has been proposed that the three figures represent the three ages of man, and that the figure at right looking out at the viewer is a self-portrait of the artist himself. In another painting in Budapest (inv. no. 3820), the background recedes into darkness and the figures at left and right resemble those in the present work, but the figure at centre is replaced by a young girl pouring wine.

The precise relationship between the many versions and variants and the prototypes securely attributed to Velázquez himself remains unclear; many are ascribed to the artist’s ‘workshop’ or ‘studio’, but our lack of understanding of the nature of his practice during his tenure in Seville complicates this designation. Their very existence and number, however, demonstrate the strength of the artist’s innovations and inventions in the genre; his famed bodegones inspired imitations by the painters working in his immediate circle and far beyond.

^1. Quoted in translation from E. Harris, Velázquez, Oxford, 1982, p. 194.