The original, sold in these Rooms on 27 November 1970 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was painted in Rome in 1650. Juan de Pareja (c.1610-1670) was Velázquez's slave until his emancipation in 1654. According to Palomino, Pareja had taught himself to paint in secret and his success is shown by such pictures as 'The Calling of Saint Matthew' of 1661 in the Prado. Of the two recorded copies of Velázquez's portrait of him, one, in the Hispanic Society of America, New York, is generally regarded as the work of Pareja himself; the other is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts Jules Chéret, Nice