Le Bouffon Calabacillas

At the court of Philip IV in Madrid, a group of jesters and dwarfs were kept in the royal household for the king's amusement, and Velazquez, the court painter, portrayed them one by one. This is the man known as Calabacillas, in life Juan Martin, who was cross-eyed and slow of speech. Velazquez paints him mid-laugh, hands loose, with two gourds set on the floor beside him. The gourds are a pun: calabaza is Spanish for gourd and also, then as now, a word for a simpleton, which is where his nickname came from. Velazquez gives him the same close, unhurried looking he brought to princes and generals. The portrait was one of a set of jesters made for the Torre de la Parada, the king's hunting lodge outside Madrid.