A painting a day · No. 11 of 38
Las Meninas
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660)
1656 · Oil on canvas · Museo del Prado, Madrid
The story
The five-year-old Infanta Margarita of Spain, her maids of honour (the meninas), a dwarf, a dog — and Velázquez himself, at work on a huge canvas. Who is he painting? The answer is in the mirror at the back: the King and Queen, standing where you stand.
Look closer
- The mirror on the back wall shows the King and Queen.
- A man pauses on the stairs in the bright back doorway, looking in.
- The red cross on the painter's chest is the Order of Santiago. He only received it in 1659, three years after the painting was finished — so it was added later.
Did you know
In 1957 Picasso painted 58 variations on it. They hang together in the Museu Picasso in Barcelona.
Why we can show it
Diego Velázquez died in 1660. UK copyright lasts for the artist’s life plus 70 years, so even under today’s rules this painting would have been free for anyone to show since 1731. The photograph is a faithful copy of a flat work, which creates no new copyright. We do not store the picture: it comes from Wikimedia Commons each time it is needed. More on this.