Las Meninas

This was painted in 1656, deep inside the Madrid palace of Philip the Fourth, a Spanish king whose empire was slowly fading even as his court kept up its rigid ceremony. Velázquez had spent decades as the king's painter and, unusually, his friend, and here he shows us his own working world. At the centre is the little princess Margarita, about five years old, surrounded by her maids of honour, two court dwarfs and a dog. But the real trick is where we stand. On the back wall hangs a mirror, and in it you can just make out the blurred faces of the king and queen. That means the royal couple are standing about where we are, and the whole scene is arranged around their gaze. Velázquez put himself in too, on the left, brush in hand, stepping back from a huge canvas we only see from behind. On his chest is the red cross of the Order of Santiago, a knighthood he was not actually granted until 1659, three years after this. The old court story says the cross was added later on the king's own orders, though modern examination of the paint has made that harder to prove. The girl at the centre would die at 21, married to an emperor.