Принц Бальтасар Карлос с карликом

The little boy in the centre is Baltasar Carlos, the long-awaited heir to the Spanish throne, and when Velazquez painted him in 1631 he was not yet two years old. They have dressed him for the part. He wears the sash and gorget of a general, a commander's baton in one small hand, a sword at his hip, and he stands on a step with a cushion beside him to raise him up. Down in the corner, a court dwarf about the prince's own height holds a rattle and an apple. Those look like a toddler's toys, and they are, but they also echo the orb and sceptre the child was expected to hold one day as king. He never did. Baltasar Carlos died at 16, and the crown passed elsewhere. This was the first of several portraits Velazquez made of him.