Head of a Stag

The Spanish court under Philip IV hunted constantly, and this is in effect a trophy, the head and antlers of a stag set against an open sky, the way a nobleman might record a prize kill. Velazquez had arrived in Madrid as the young king's painter only a few years earlier, and most scholars give the picture to him, though it carries so little documentation that its date floats somewhere between 1626 and the mid-1630s. He treats the animal with the same steady attention he gave the king's servants and dwarfs, no drama, just the weight of the head and the fall of light along the antlers. It came to the Prado in 1975 as a private gift.