Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress

Velázquez's 1659 portrait of the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a blue dress was painted when the Spanish princess was about eight years old, as one of several works sent to the Habsburg court in Vienna documenting her growth for her future husband Emperor Leopold I. The magnificent blue-silver gown with its elaborate cartwheel farthingale exemplifies Spanish court fashion at its most opulent. Velázquez rendered the fabric textures with extraordinary virtuosity, capturing silk, lace, and embroidery in loose, luminous strokes. The portrait is among the last he completed before his death in 1660.

The extraordinary blue silk dress with its wide panniers is rendered with breathtaking freedom, Velázquez's late brushwork dissolving the fabric into shimmering passages of blue and silver that anticipate Impressionism.