Portrait du roi Philippe IV

In 1623 Velazquez was twenty-four, a painter from Seville who had come to Madrid hoping for a chance at court. This bust of the young king, Philip IV, is very likely the first portrait he ever made of him, painted as a kind of audition. It worked. The king was so pleased that he named Velazquez his court painter and reportedly ordered that no one else would ever paint his likeness, a partnership that lasted the rest of the painter's life. X-rays of this portrait show Velazquez shifting the line of the king's neck and shoulders as he worked, feeling his way, and that same searching outline turns up beneath the more finished version now in the Prado.