Maria Anna, Queen of Spain

Maria Anna, Queen of Spain, painted around 1652-1653, belongs to Velázquez's documentation of the young queen who had married the aging Philip IV three years earlier. The portrait's formal requirements — the official representation of the Spanish queen in all the elaboration of court costume — are handled with the concentrated attention Velázquez brought to all his royal work. The queen's youth (she was born in 1634) is visible in her face above the stiff dress that official representation demanded, and Velázquez's capacity to make the individual human presence felt within formal constraints is one of the defining achievements of his late portrait style. The series of Mariana portraits builds toward the definitive statement of Las Meninas, where she appears in the background mirror.

The queen's elaborate coiffure and wide farthingale create the distinctively Spanish silhouette that foreign visitors found both fascinating and bizarre. Velazquez paints this architectural costume with the same objective observation he applied to everything, finding visual interest in its geometric complexity.