www.khm.at
In 2014 the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna will show the first individual exhibition in honour of this famous artist in the service of the “Casa de Austria”. The focus of the exhibition is to provide a comprehensive display of this artist’s versatile and artistically ever constant and extraordinary creative power, and to present, along with the portraits, also examples of his mythological and religious works as well as still life, landscape and animals studies.
Outstanding items on loan from the National Gallery London and the Museo del Prado allow for a differentiated view of the uniquely artistic works of Diego Velásquez. He himself was involved in the study of the paintings in the royal picture gallery in Madrid, and he also studied the works of other artists on his trips to Italy.
Thanks to the close familial and political relationship between the Habsburg Houses in Vienna and Madrid in the 17th century the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna owns an important group of extraordinary portraits produced by the court painter of King Philipp IV. Alongside the portraits of Maria Teresa and the Infant Philipp Prosper, the enchanting painting series of Infanta Margarita Teresa in particular achieved worldwide fame. These portraits, which show her as a three, five and eight year old girl, were painted for her future husband from the House of Habsburg.
The Picture Gallery in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna offers the unique opportunity to compare the works of Velásquez with portrayals of the same themes produced by great artists from Italy and the Netherlands.