Focus on Portrait of Mariana of Austria and analyze the Provenance and copies.
The painting was recorded in a 1700 inventory when it was paired with Philip IV in Armour with a Lion, which is now in El Escorial, Madrid, and attributed to members of his workshop. Velázquez's portrait of Philip is unfinished; some sections, including the lion, are described by art historian Julián Gállego as "hardly more than sketched". According to the art historian Georgia Mancini, sometime before 1700, another hand "added a piece of canvas to the top of the original composition and painted the upper part of the curtain", so as it would match the size of Philip's portrait.Later in life, Velázquez became preoccupied with courtly duties, and tended to paint a bust-length portrait of his sitter from life, leaving the completion of the final work to assistants. Several contemporary full-length copies are known; one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, a second was sent to Archduke Leopold William in 1653, but is now lost. The third was in the Prado until it was acquired by the Louvre in a 1941 exchange. A half-length version attributed to members of his workshop is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The version cataloged in the collection of Richard Ford by the German art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen in his 1854 "Art Treasures in Great Britain", and misidentified by Harry Wehle in 1940 as the Met picture, is today attributed to followers of Velázquez, and in the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida.
Sarasota, Florida Richard Ford Leopold Ringling Museum of Art Archduke Leopold William Louvre Madrid El Escorial Kunsthistorisches Museum Gustav Friedrich Waagen Metropolitan Museum of Art