Don Cristóbal Suárez de Ribera

Don Cristóbal Suárez de Ribera, painted in 1620 and now in the Museo de Bellas Artes Seville, is one of Velázquez's earliest surviving portraits and one of the few identified as a memorial or posthumous image. The subject died before the portrait was made — it was produced as a commemorative work for his chapel in Seville. The young Velázquez's command of the psychological portrait genre is already evident: the face has presence and individuality even though it was presumably painted from a death mask or earlier likeness rather than from life. The work demonstrates that Velázquez was capable of conveying the sense of a specific human being even in the most constrained circumstances of posthumous representation.

The priest's dark vestments create the austere tonal framework that would characterize Velazquez's portraiture throughout his career. The face is painted with the detailed, heavy brushwork of the Seville period, with strong shadows and warm flesh tones that give the sitter a vivid physical presence.