Portrait of the Jester Calabazas (c. 1631–32): Art, History and Details

Portrait of the Jester Calabazas (c. 1631–32) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Calabazas, a jester in the court of King Philip IV of Spain, had physical and mental disabilities, a state that the artist emphasizes, rather than tries to hide. While the Spanish court prized and doted upon people with disabilities such as Calabazas, Velázquez transformed their depiction in portraiture. This startling work uses the format of the formal, full-length court portrait to present a type of person who was generally perceived as marginal at this point in history and profoundly humanizes him.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of the Jester Calabazas
• Date: c. 1631–32
• Creator attribution: Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 199.3 x 133.1 x 12.7 cm (78 7/16 x 52 3/8 x 5 in.); Unframed: 175 x 106 cm (68 7/8 x 41 3/4 in.)
• Collection: P - Spanish before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1965.15

A detail from the museum

Calabazas holds a wind-driven pinwheel and a miniature portrait of a woman, together suggesting the inconstancy of love.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Curtis, Charles Boyd. Velazquez and Murillo; A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Works of Don Diego De Silva Velazquez and Bartolomé Estéban Murillo. London, United Kingdom: S. Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1883.
• Justi, Carl, and A. H. Keane. Diego Velazquez and His Times. London, United Kingdom: H. Grevel & Co, 1889.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.