Äsop

Velazquez painted this around 1639 for the Torre de la Parada, King Philip IV's hunting lodge in the hills outside Madrid, where whole rooms were hung with Rubens's gods and heroes. Into that company he sent Aesop, the ancient Greek fable-teller who had been born a slave. The full-length format was the kind of thing usually saved for royalty, and Velazquez uses it on a man in a worn brown robe, holding a battered book, his belongings on the floor. There is no flattery in the face. Aesop stands loose and unhurried and looks straight back at whoever came to admire the king's paintings, entirely unimpressed. By his feet sits a pail of water, a nod to the sharp answer he was said to have given the master who once owned him.