Las Meninas
The Ladies-in-Waiting
The little Infanta among her maids, the painter at his canvas, and the king and queen in the mirror.
In a room of the royal palace in Madrid, the five-year-old Infanta Margarita stands among her maids of honour, the meninas, with two court dwarfs and a big sleepy dog. On the left Velázquez himself looks out from behind a huge canvas.
In the mirror at the back are King Philip IV and Queen Mariana: they stand where you stand, and the whole scene looks out at them. The red cross on the painter’s chest is the Order of Santiago, which he was given in 1659, three years after he painted himself. Stand before it in 3D ›
