There is the portrait by Velazquez of the Infanta Margarita, small hands firm on the huge frothing and shimmering skirt of red and silver, the curls shining, the wide confident eyes incuriously fixed on their great delineator, the Hapsburg cheek bulging a little as if over a lollipop, the Hapsburg nose already bulbing, the Hapsburg arrogance noe to far away, all in a marvelously suspended animation.
The Infanta Dona Margarita-c. 1660
Oil on canvas, 212 x 147 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Velázquez began this painting in the year of his death, it was finished and partly transformed by his son-in-law, Juan Battista Martinez del Mazo.
click image for source…
The Venerable Mother Jeronima de la Fuente, grasping her crucifix as other women grasp an axe, reminds us of every shrewd, hard, patient old Spanish nun we could ever see or imagine. When Velazquez painted her, she was waiting in Seville to take ship for Manila to found the convent of Santa Clara there; but we may still run across her at any time, marshaling her orphans along a dusty road, resolutely extracting alms from people in cafes, totting up the accounts of her convent, telling her beads in a come-no-nonsense manner on the wooden seat of a crowded and appalling train, a creature not of today, tomorrow, or yesterday but of always, a drab brown figure, expressive not only of the woman but of her land and her Church, painted when Velazquez was twenty-one.
—Here we have a portrait of the Venerable Mother Jeronima de la Fuente, by the Spanish Court painter, Velasquez. A saintly woman she was, who founded a convent and whose order required a vow of silence. Alas, how glum she seems to find her lot and how much the banderol and crucifix make her look like the grim reaper. The title admonishes: “It is Good to await the Salvation of the Lord in Silence”.—click image for source…
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