It is also possible that Velázquez is painting something else, a subject
that didn’t require the presence of models, and the king and queen have
come to pay a visit. Is that likely? The king valued Velázquez as a highly
ranked courtier, as a close friend, and as a great painter. Did the king and
queen visit because they knew the princess was there? That would explain
why her attention seems suddenly to be divided between her companions
and her parents.
Today, we are fascinated by the reÀ ection in the mirror and by the
philosophical implications of different levels of reality. In the reality of
17 th-century Spain, it would have been beyond the bounds of courtly
propriety to show the royal couple in the same physical space as the artist,
but in reÀ ection, doing so was just permissible. What about the maids of the
title? These are the two curtsying attendants of the young princess, Margarita
Maria, who has been brought into the artist’s studio, together with her
entourage of the dwarfs, who were her playmates, and her chaperones.
Two things are certain: Velázquez did not paint this marvel for his own
amusement, nor did he paint it to hang in a museum. The painting was
installed in a part of the palace reserved for King Philip IV and his intimates;
therefore, it was created primarily for an audience of one, and that one was a
participant in the painting. Velázquez has the cross of the Order of Santiago
on his doublet, but he was ennobled only after this picture was painted, and a
contemporary historian writes that the cross was added by order of the king.
On the one hand, this painting succeeded in proclaiming that art was a noble
profession, not a craft, but on the other, it proclaimed itself the signi¿ er of
artistic genius. When the once-famous painter Luca Giordano was shown this
painting by King Charles II, Philip’s son, he said, “Sire, this is the Theology
of Painting,” by which, the contemporary explained, “he meant to convey
that just as theology is superior to all other branches of knowledge, so is this
picture the greatest example of painting.” Ŷ