The likeness of powerful Spanish monarch King Philip IV — he of the astute eye whose art collection forms a pillar of one of the world’s most munificent museums, Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid — comes to the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University this fall. “Diego Velázquez: The Early Court Portraits” pairs this patron extraordinaire with his official court painter, assembling early examples from the 17th-century Spanish master’s oeuvre including the celebrated, psychologically modern, imposing canvas of Philip IV from 1623 to 1627, begun when the artist was only 24 years old. Part of the innovative, ongoing Prado-Meadows exchange, this loan comes full circle, for if there were no Philip IV nor his portrait by Velázquez, there would have been no Prado to inspire Algur H. Meadows to found his own “small Prado
in Texas.” September 16, 2012 - January 13, 2013, at Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University; smu.edu/meadowsmuseum.
IMAGE: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez’s Philip IV, 1623 – 1627, at Meadows Museum, SMU