Painters & Textiles: Velázquez

I’ve been thinking about painters and textiles lately. Here are some details of three Velázquez paintings of fabrics and Infanta Margarita.

White Dress worn by Infanta Margarita
Pink Dress worn by Infanta Margarita next to a blue textile and on a woven carpet
Blue Dress worn by Infanta Margarita

The white dress with the cross hatch marks was made while he was working on Las Meninas. The blue one, made three years later, was one of the last two paintings Velázquez completed. That is apparently a fur muff in the Infanta’s left hand. TBH I read it as translucent, at least on top, with the silver trim of the dress extending under it, like it was a platter of tinted glass, and I was confounded by it. The pink one also has a vase of flowers, which is after the jump. 1654. Amazing.

Flowers on a blue textile touched by Infanta Margarita

These are all in the Kunsthistorischesmuseum in Vienna.