Salvador Salort-Pons, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), recently revealed the discovery of a portrait by Diego Velázquez made during the artist’s earliest years as a court painter to King Philip IV. Salort-Pons, a specialist on Velázquez, published his findings in the current issue of ARS Magazine, which is run by the Museo Prado in Madrid.
Titled The Count-Duke of Olivares in Armor (1626), the rediscovered painting depicts Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, commonly known as the Count-Duke of Olivares, who served as prime minister of Spain from 1623 to 1643 and was a valido (court favorite) of Philip IV. The work currently belongs to a private collection, according to Salort-Pons, who does not provide recent provenance of the work.
Published in Spanish, Salort-Pons’s essay notes that, upon his arrival to the Spanish court from Seville in 1626, Velázquez was commissioned by the Count-Duke of Olivares to make two portraits: one of the Count-Duke and the other of Francesco Barberini, an Italian cardinal who was the nephew of Pope Urban VIII, to commemorate Barberini’s diplomatic mission to the Spanish court. Upon completion, the two works were to be exchanged with the Count-Duke keeping the one of Barberini and vice versa.
“Contemporary sources reveal that neither portrait met with the Italian’s approval,” Salort-Pons writes. “While the portrait of Barberini remains lost, the one believed to be of Olivares is presented here.”
The DIA is currently organizing an exhibition titled “Velázquez & Olivares: Early Years at Court,” focusing on the painter’s career during the 1620s, when “he transitioned from a young, ambitious outsider from Seville to the official court painter for King Philip IV of Spain,” according to a description. That exhibition will open in January 2027, and Salort-Pons’s essay is adapted from another piece of writing that will appear in the accompanying catalog.
Salort-Pons draws on the research of art historian Enriqueta Harris, who published in 1970 the diaries of Cassiano dal Pozzo, an art collector and patron who was also Barberini’s secretary and accompanied the cardinal on his visit. Harris’s research includes “previously unknown and highly significant information regarding Diego Velázquez’s activities during his early years in the service of Philip IV,” Salort-Pons writes, including the existence of the two portraits, which “had gone unrecorded until then.”
Dal Pozzo described the Barberini portrait “as having a ‘melancholy’ and ‘severe’ air” to it, though the diary does not state what the Italian cardinal thought of the Olivares painting, which he kept until his death. His dairy adds that Madrid-based painter Juan van der Hamen was then commissioned to make a new portrait of Barberini. (That second portrait is also believed to be missing.)
Salort-Pons adds that dal Pozzo’s “highly critical opinion of [Velázquez’s] painting is striking. Today, the vast majority of specialists agree that the dissatisfaction with the Barberini portrait and the choice of Van der Hamen to replace Velázquez may reflect the tensions and resistance stirred up by the Sevillian artist’s rapid rise within the Alcázar.”
Salort-Pons supports his findings with the inventories of Barberini’s art holdings. A 1631 inventory of the cardinal’s Roman collection lists a portrait of the Count-Duke, “cioè testa e busto, armato: di telaro da testa” (specifically head and torso, in armor—on a head-sized stretcher). In a footnote, Salort-Pons adds that “telaro da testa” historically refers to the dimensions of 62 x 47 cm (25.2 x 18.5 inches), which is close to the measurements of the newly discovered painting, 60 x 48 cm (23.6 x 18.9 inches). The footnote adds that the painting was also recorded in Barberini’s post-mortem inventory of 1679.
From left, Diego Velázquez: The Count-Duke of Olivares (1624), owned by MASP; The Count-Duke of Olivares (ca. 1625), Varez Fisa Collection, Madrid; The Count-Duke of Olivares (ca. 1625), Hispanic Society of America, New York.
Courtesy their respective museums and ARS Magazine
Three other portraits of the Count-Duke of Olivares by Velázquez are currently known, which were painted between 1623 and 1626 to reflect both “the royal favorite’s power at court and his closeness to the king” as well as “to present the new monarchy and its administration in a light significantly different from that of the previous reign, reflecting a spirit of reform and austerity,” Salort-Pons writes.
All three versions show Olivares dressed in all black, with a cape on his left shoulder and a gold chain across his chest, which Salort-Pons notes was “highly fashionable at the time.” He stands next to a table with a red velvet covering. The earliest version, from 1624 and now owned by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, adds a key and gold spurs to his garb to signify his offices.
The other two versions are both dated to about 1625 and attributed to Velázquez. One is owned by the Hispanic Society of America in New York and the other by the Madrid-based Varez Fisa Collection. These two have subtle differences from the earlier portrait, as they change those accessories to the embroidered cross of the Orden de Alcántara, a military order, as well as baton resting on the table and the Count-Duke holding a riding crop. Salort-Pons adds that these signified “his political and military obligations” as well as “his ability to govern the nation.”
The position of Olivares in these two later works has also shifted, with Velázquez “opting for a semi-profile view rather than an imposing frontal pose,” which Salort-Pons interprets as a departure from the “explicit power and energy of the 1624 portrait” for a composition with “greater subtlety, elegance, and detachment.”
X-ray image of The Count-Duke of Olivares in Armor (1626), now attributed to Diego Velázquez.
Courtesy ARS Magazine
The newly attributed 1626 painting, Salort-Pons suggests, sees Velázquez creating “a third prototype of the portrait of Olivares” that shows him more as a military leader than in the previous renderings that highlighted Olivares as a statesman. Additionally, instead of a full-body portrait, the Old Master opts for a bust-length portrait, and he is now “depicted wearing armor and the red sash of a general” with hair that is “slightly disheveled, with a lock falling over the left side of his forehead.”
To further support his claim, Salort-Pons writes that Velázquez’s signature “fluid brushwork and thicker impasto” is visible in armor, sash, gilded metalwork, and folds of the fabric, which employ “a style and technique comparable to those found in the Portrait of Philip IV (1626–1628),” which he says also shares its composition with the 1626 Olivares portrait.
Salort-Pons also provides the results of X-ray imaging done on the painting that shows various alterations to the painting, including to the positioning of his left ear and right shoulder, as well as to the addition of the sitter’s armor and the hilt of a sword (ultimately removed from the final work). “All these modifications suggest that the favorite was initially depicted in the attire of a statesman rather than a military figure,” he writes. “Cardinal Barberini’s visit to Madrid offered Olivares an ideal opportunity to disseminate this new image through the portrait, ensuring that his strategic leadership was recognized at the papal court.”
Salort-Pons concludes by saying, “In summary, this portrait masterfully illustrates the intersection of art and diplomacy between the Spanish court and the Vatican in 1626. It represents the most significant addition to Velázquez’s catalogue in recent years and constitutes the first documented image of the royal favorite in armor.”
