polity habsburg spainconcept:era early modern
The Water Seller of Seville
Oil on canvas (c.1618–1622) by Diego Velázquez, depicting an old water-seller handing a cup of water to a boy, with a young man in the background. Painted in Seville in his bodegón period. Held at Apsley House (Wellington Collection), London.
Scholarly Significance
Velázquez's supreme early bodegón; among the finest still-life genre paintings of the 17th century.
Notes
- ·Painted during Velázquez's Seville period (c.1617–1623), before his move to Madrid.
- ·The bodegón (kitchen scene or still life with figures) was an innovative genre in early 17th-century Spain.
- ·The old man's face is one of Velázquez's most penetrating early character studies.
- ·The glass vessel in the foreground, filled with water with a fig in it (to clarify the water), is rendered with extraordinary tactile precision.
- ·Captured by Wellington at Vitoria (1813) among Joseph Bonaparte's abandoned baggage; the Spanish king's request for its return was declined.