Don Juan Mateos (d.1643)

This portrait shows an older gentleman, which in all probability represents the royal hunting master Juan Mateos. At the same time it is one of the very few portraits that can be identified as a work by Velázquez, which does not portray a member of the royal family, a minister, a court fool or dwarf, who inhabited the royal palace. The portrait served as a model for a treatise about the origins and dignity of the hunt, which Mateos wrote in 1643. The sitter wears heavy gloves; his left hand rests on the handle of a rapier, his right hand takes hold of a pistol, indicated by only a few brushstrokes.