The Waterseller of Seville

Nearly two centuries after Velázquez painted this in Seville around 1620, it was carried off as spoils of war. French troops looted it from the Spanish royal collection, and the Duke of Wellington's men recaptured it in the baggage train after the battle of Vitoria in 1813. Spain let Wellington keep it, and it still hangs in his London home. The picture itself is quiet by comparison: an old water seller in a torn cloak hands a glass to a boy, his hand steadying the boy's on the stem. The great earthen jar in front glistens with beads of water, and dropped into the clear glass is a single fig, a Sevillian trick to freshen the taste. The old man does not meet the boy's eye.