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Your galleryPortrait of the Jester Calabazas
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Find the tiny portrait raised in his right hand and the pinwheel on its stick in his left, then the folding stool beside him.
Calabazas was a jester at the court of King Philip IV, and this canvas once belonged to the royal collections in Madrid. Velázquez gives him the full-length format of a formal court portrait, showing his physical and mental disabilities openly and, as the Cleveland Museum of Art notes, with deep humanity. He holds a small portrait of a woman and a paper pinwheel, together a hint at the fickleness of love.
oil on canvas · Framed: 199.3 x 133.1 x 12.7 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Portrait of the Jester Calabazas
- Artist
- Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660)
- Date
- c. 1631–32
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 199.3 x 133.1 x 12.7 cm (78 7/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 in.); Unframed: 175 x 106 cm (68 7/8 x 41 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.