Retrato de Juan de Córdoba

In 1650 Velazquez was in Rome, sent by Philip IV to buy paintings and sculpture for the Spanish court. It was a remarkable stay. In the same months he painted his searching portrait of Pope Innocent X and the head of his assistant Juan de Pareja. This portrait belongs to that circle too, long identified as Juan de Cordoba, a Spaniard who helped Velazquez with his errands and shipments in the city. It is a plain, direct head against a neutral ground, done with the loose, confident brushwork of a man at the height of his craft. Velazquez painted these Roman faces for himself and his friends rather than the king, and left several of them behind in Italy.