59 pages • 1 hour read
I, Juan de Pareja
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Background
Historical Context: Slavery in the Spanish Golden Age
The Spanish Golden Age began in roughly 1492, after Christopher Columbus’s exploratory voyage to the Americas, and extended artistically to about 1681. These roughly 200 years marked Spain’s emergence as a major political power and sparked an outpouring of music, literature, and art. However, this period overlapped with one of history’s most significant blights. The Transatlantic Slave Trade began in the 15th century, coinciding with European exploration of the Americas, and enslaved millions of native Africans in European countries or overseas territories and colonies. Spanish traders and colonists often purchased enslaved people from Portuguese traders with established bases on Africa’s west coast. As a result, the Iberian Peninsula emerged as a major center of the European slave trade. By 1600, Spain counted an enslaved population of about 100,000 individuals (Earle, Thomas F. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Though slavery existed consistently throughout Spain, it took hold specifically in Seville, a major city in the southwest that developed significantly throughout the 16th century. Seville’s river ports ushered in goods from colonial trade routes but also guaranteed the city’s prominence in the Spanish slave trade. In 1565, a citywide census registered roughly one enslaved person for every 14 of the city’s free inhabitants (Pike, Ruth. “Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century: Slaves and Freedmen.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Aug.1967, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 344-59). By 1600, Seville had the largest population of enslaved people in Europe outside of Lisbon, and its public spaces proved notable for their racial diversity. Diego Velázquez was born in Seville in 1599 and apprenticed there under Francisco Pacheco, one of the city’s primary artists. Velázquez’s early work often reflected Seville’s cosmopolitan identity, incorporating elements of “New World” luxury and looking frankly at the urban community that developed around international trade. Velázquez lived and worked in Seville until 1623 when an appointment by King Philip IV necessitated his move to Madrid.
Cultural Context: Diego Velázquez and Juan de Pareja
Diego Velázquez was the most prominent and well-regarded painter of Spain’s Golden Age. As an apprentice, he took inspiration from contemporary painters like Caravaggio, later incorporating Caravaggio’s experimentations with light and shadow into his own paintings. Once established in his own studio, Velázquez produced both religious paintings and less idealized depictions of Seville’s diversified population. In 1623, he was granted a position in King Philip IV’s court in Madrid, where he worked as the royal family’s portraitist, art curator, and senior administrator.
Juan de Pareja was born around 1608 in southern Spain. His father is unknown, but his mother was an enslaved Black woman. Little information remains regarding his life or beginnings, but documentation suggests an association with Velázquez beginning in the mid-1630s. It is unknown whether Velázquez purchased de Pareja himself or gained ownership via inheritance, as depicted in I, Juan de Pareja. Either way, it was not uncommon for artists to avail themselves of enslaved apprentices and assign them auxiliary tasks like stretching canvases. Artistic guild regulations prohibited enslaved apprentices from receiving any formal education, but this standard was likely flouted, albeit discreetly. It’s possible that by 1649, de Pareja had created paintings in Velázquez’s studio.
In 1649, Velázquez and de Pareja journeyed to Rome at the behest of the Spanish court. There, in 1650, Velázquez exhibited a portrait of de Pareja, titled Portrait of Juan de Pareja. Critics have noted the contradictions that complicate the portrait’s viewing: Velázquez imbues de Pareja’s forward-facing gaze with a certain humanity despite keeping him captive. The same year of the portrait’s debut, Velázquez signed a document guaranteeing de Pareja’s freedom within the next four years.
In 1654, newly freed, de Pareja began an art career of his own. Though he had worked closely with Velázquez, his own compositions departed from the dark seriousness that came to characterize Velázquez’s paintings. One of de Pareja’s more celebrated paintings, The Calling of St. Matthew (1661), hangs today in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
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