# Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608-1670) > Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez - 1650 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/diego-velazquez/velazquez-juan-de-pareja/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-09 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez - **Date:** 1650 - **Medium:** Oil on canvas - **Dimensions:** 81.3 x 69.9 cm (32 x 27 1/2 in.) - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** Spanish, seventeenth century - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A portrait painted in Rome in 1650 of a man the painter legally owned. Juan de Pareja was enslaved in Velazquez's household and workshop for at least two decades; within months of sitting for this canvas he was signed towards freedom, and he went on to a documented career as a painter in Madrid with signed altar-scale pictures now in the Prado.The picture then passed through a Roman cardinal's collection, a British envoy's palazzo in Naples, a Yorkshire antiquary and a hundred and fifty-nine years at Longford Castle before Christie's sold it on 27 November 1970 for 2,200,000 guineas. That is 2,310,000 pounds, the first painting ever to make more than a million at auction, and in 1970 there was no buyer's premium at all, so the bid and the invoice were the same number. The underbidder was Thomas Agnew and Sons, acting for the National Gallery of Art in Washington; the National Gallery in London keeps the firm's account of the loss under the title The One That Got Away. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1650-1704** Unrecorded `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented for the half-century after the picture was painted. Francisco Preciado wrote in 1765 that a portrait of Pareja by Velazquez had belonged to Cardinal Acquaviva; Everett Fahy, publishing the detailed provenance in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin in 1971, concluded that what Preciado saw was a copy. The Met's chain therefore begins with Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, by 1704. - **by 1704-1753** Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, Rome `[documented]` (ownership) In Ruffo's collection by 1704 and recorded in his inventory of 1734. The Ruffo family of Naples is the same house that commissioned from Rembrandt; this branch held the picture for three generations. - **1753-1772** Litterio Ruffo, 2nd duca di Baranello, Naples `[documented]` (inheritance) By descent on the cardinal's death in 1753. - **1772-1776** Vincenzo Ruffo, 3rd duca di Baranello, Naples `[documented]` (inheritance) Sold by him to Sir William Hamilton in 1776. - **1776-1801** Sir William Hamilton, Palazzo Sessa, Naples `[documented]` (purchase) British envoy to the court of Naples, collector of vases and volcanoes, and the buyer of the picture from the Ruffo family. His own inventory of 14 July 1798 states that the portrait came from the Baranello collection at Naples, which is the document that anchors the Ruffo link. - **1801-1808** Thomas Lister Parker, Browsholme Hall, Yorkshire `[documented]` (purchase at auction) Bought at the Hamilton sale, Christie's, London, 27-28 March 1801, lot 59, for 40 pounds 19 shillings. William Buchanan, writing in 1824, gives the same transaction as 39 guineas to a buyer he spells Parkes; 39 guineas is exactly 40 pounds 19 shillings, so the two figures are one figure in two currencies. Still with Parker in 1808, when it appears as no. 30 in his catalogue. - **1811-1828** Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor, Longford Castle, Wiltshire `[documented]` (purchase) Recorded at Longford by 1814, but the Radnor catalogue of 1909 indicates that the 2nd Earl bought it on 1 May 1811 for 151 pounds 14 shillings and 5 pence. In ten years the price had risen roughly fourfold, and both figures are documented rather than inferred. - **1828-1968** The Earls of Radnor, Longford Castle `[documented]` (inheritance) By descent for a hundred and forty years, catalogued in 1909 as no. 87. Waagen listed it as picture 147 at Longford Castle in 1857. - **1968-1970** Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 8th Earl of Radnor, Longford Castle `[documented]` (inheritance) Consigned to Christie's, London, and sold on 27 November 1970 as lot 110 to Wildenstein acting for the Metropolitan Museum. - **1971-present** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (acquisition) Accession 1971.86. The credit line records purchase from the Fletcher and Rogers Funds and the bequest of Adelaide Milton de Groot by exchange, supplemented by gifts from friends of the Museum. On view in Gallery 625 as of August 2026. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1801-03-27** Christie's, The Sir William Hamilton sale, London, 27-28 March 1801, lot 59 - Estimate: Not published in the sources consulted - Hammer: GBP 40.19.0 (39 guineas) - With premium: None. No buyer's premium existed at a London auction house in 1801. - The Met's provenance gives 40 pounds 19 shillings; Buchanan's 1824 account of pictures imported into England since the French Revolution gives 39 guineas. A guinea was 21 shillings, so 39 guineas is 819 shillings, which is 40 pounds 19 shillings exactly. Two sources, one price, no conflict. - **1970-11-27** Christie's, The Earl of Radnor sale, King Street, London, lot 110 - Estimate: Not published in the sources consulted - Hammer: 2,200,000 guineas, that is GBP 2,310,000 - With premium: None charged to the buyer. Christie's and Sotheby's introduced the modern 10 per cent buyer's premium in London in September 1975, five years after this sale, so the sum bid and the sum invoiced were the same. - The first painting to sell for more than one million pounds at auction and the world record for any painting at the time. The dollar figure of USD 5,544,000 that circulated is a conversion at the rate of the day and is derived, not a second price. Because the bidding was in guineas, the shilling in every pound went to the auctioneer as commission from the seller under the old guinea convention, which is why the sterling total is exactly five per cent above the guinea number. Nothing was added to the buyer's side. ## Open questions - Where was the portrait between 1650 and 1704? Half a century after it left Velazquez's hands is undocumented. - Did Cardinal Acquaviva own a version of this portrait, as Preciado wrote in 1765, and if so which one? Fahy concluded in 1971 that Preciado saw a copy, but the copy he saw has not been identified with the Hispanic Society picture or with any other. - Was a British export licence application made after the 1970 sale, and was it deferred under the Waverley criteria? The trade press treated the departure as a scandal, but the sources consulted for this record do not establish what the Reviewing Committee did. - What was Agnew's ceiling on behalf of the National Gallery of Art in Washington? The National Gallery archive holds his account of the attempt; the figure is not published in the sources consulted. - From whom did the 2nd Earl of Radnor buy the picture on 1 May 1811, and had it passed through another hand after Thomas Lister Parker's 1808 catalogue? - What were the terms of the delayed manumission signed in November 1650, and where is the document now? ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object record 437869, Velazquez, Juan de Pareja (ca. 1608-1670), accession 1971.86. Consulted for the tombstone, the catalogue entry by Xavier F. Salomon revised by Keith Christiansen and David Pullins, the full provenance, the exhibition history and the bibliography, which supplies Buchanan 1824, Stirling-Maxwell 1848 and 1855, Waagen 1857, Fahy 1971, Sonnenburg 1971, the Burlington and Apollo editorials of February 1971 and the Antichita viva error. - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access API, object 437869. Consulted for isPublicDomain, primaryImage, medium, dimensions, accession number and credit line. - [3] National Gallery, London, Archive, item NGA27/24/17/15, 'Velasquez's Juan de Pareja: The One That Got Away', 1970. Two copies of Geoffrey Agnew's account of the firm's attempt to buy the picture for the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and of losing to Alec Wildenstein's bid for the Metropolitan Museum. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Buyer's premium'. Tertiary. Used only for the statement that the modern buyer's premium was introduced at 10 per cent by Christie's and Sotheby's in London in September 1975. Replace with the auction houses' own 1975 conditions of sale or the Antiques Trade Gazette coverage of the dealer walkout. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Diego Velazquez'. Tertiary. Used for the biography, the 1623 sitting, the two Italian journeys, the Order of Santiago in 1659, the corpus of 110 to 120 canvases and the November 1650 freedom papers. Replace with the Met's own Heilbrunn Timeline essay and with Lopez-Rey's catalogue raisonne. - [6] Wikipedia, 'Portrait of Juan de Pareja'. Tertiary. Used for the 1970 sale figures in guineas, pounds and dollars and for the statement that Alec Wildenstein bid on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum. The guinea and sterling figures are corroborated by the Met's own provenance; the dollar figure is a conversion and is treated as derived. - [7] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, exhibition page, 'Juan de Pareja, Afro-Hispanic Painter', 2023. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.