Las Meninas (section)

Diego Velázquez painted this remarkable scene in 1656, capturing an ordinary moment inside the Spanish royal court. At the center stands the young princess Margarita Teresa, dressed in a pale, shimmering gown, with her maids of honor leaning in to attend to her. A pair of dwarfs who served the household stand to the right, and a large dog rests calmly in front of them, unbothered by all the activity. Off to the left, Velázquez painted himself at work behind an enormous canvas, brush in hand, quietly claiming his place among royalty. For a court painter of that era, putting his own face into a royal picture was a surprisingly confident thing to do.

The real trick of the painting lives in the small mirror on the back wall. In its faint reflection you can make out the king and queen, which means they are standing exactly where the viewer stands. The effect is strange and delightful, as if you have wandered into the room and the entire court has swung around to greet you. Rather than a stiff formal portrait, the whole thing feels caught in a single passing second, full of glances and movement. That sense of playful mystery has kept people arguing about the picture for centuries, and artists like Picasso were so taken with it that they painted their own versions again and again.