Santo Ildefonso recebendo a casula da Virgem

This is early Velazquez, from his Seville years, when he was barely into his twenties and not yet the painter to the king he would become. The subject is a Toledo legend, Saint Ildefonso receiving a priestly vestment from the hands of the Virgin herself as a reward for defending her honour in writing. It is one of the most crowded scenes the young Velazquez ever attempted, and you can feel him reaching, borrowing the stretched figures and cool light of El Greco, whose work he had studied on a trip to Madrid. Soon after, he went to the capital for good and traded saints and market scenes for the royal household. The painting stayed behind in Seville, where it remains.