This type of painting, set in a modest contemporary setting such as a kitchen or tavern was known as a 'bodegone' (a 'bodega' in Spanish means a wine cellar or wine merchant's).

Velázquez did not invent the device of putting a biblical scene in the background of a domestic one. It was a tradition that already existed in Netherlandish art. Velázquez would have seen paintings, and engraved copies of paintings by Netherlandish artists such as Aertsen and Beuckelaer.

Velázquez was also influenced by the radical Italian painter Caravaggio. Like Caravaggio's 'The Supper at Emmaus', the still life elements of this work are as carefully painted as the figures. Again like Caravaggio, Velázquez shows his peasant models as they really were - neither idealised, nor ridiculed.

« Previous | Next »