Velázquez’s ‘Portrait of a Queen’ from the Prado opens at Norton Simon

The Norton Simon Museum presents “Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen” from the Museo Nacional del Prado. On view from Friday through March 24, 2025, the exhibition is centered on the nearly life-size portrait “Queen Mariana of Austria” (1652–53) by 17th-century Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599 –1660). One of the highlights of the Prado’s collection of works by the artist, this masterpiece has never before been exhibited on the West Coast, and its presentation at the Norton Simon Museum offers visitors a rare opportunity to see this work in person.

Velázquez’s “Queen Mariana of Austria” is one of the artist’s most accomplished portraits, depicting the 18-year-old monarch in full splendor. She is clad in quintessential Spanish fashion, wearing a luxurious black and silver dress over the rigid support structure known as the guardainfante—which is so-called because its dramatically wide hips could mask pregnancy. The young queen, who had recently recovered from the birth of her first child with King Philip IV, gazes out with a somber, almost inscrutable expression, somewhat at odds with the spirited flamboyance of her beribboned wig and colossal feathered headpiece. Mariana was Velázquez’s first major composition after returning to Madrid from several years in Rome, and it ushered in a distinctive and final chapter of the artist’s storied career. For the first time, the artist focused primarily on images of women and children, which he depicted with great sensitivity and a new flair for color.

At the Norton Simon Museum, the portrait of the young queen will be surrounded by an international group of artists whose works were collected by the Habsburg court. Paintings by Nicolas Poussin, Guido Reni and Peter Paul Rubens, all highlights of the Museum’s collections, will be displayed side by side to evoke Mariana’s quotidian access to remarkable works of art and to invite comparisons between Velázquez and artists he knew and admired. The Velázquez portrait will also be shown in relationship to the museum’s paintings by Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomé-Esteban Murillo and Francisco de Zurbarán, displayed in an adjacent gallery, providing a unique chance to experience this essential quartet of 17th-century Spanish painters under one roof.

The loan of ‘Queen Mariana of Austria’ continues a new exchange partnership between the Norton Simon Museum and the Museo Nacional del Prado, which was launched with the loan of Francisco de Zurbarán’s “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose,” on view in Madrid from March 18 to June 30, 2024. Signed works by Velázquez are exceedingly rare and appear in only a handful of American institutions. The Prado possesses a remarkable 48 paintings by Velázquez—nearly 40 percent of the artist’s extant body of work—including many of his most iconic compositions. “Queen Mariana of Austria” was exhibited in the United States only once before, when it was lent to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for a 1989 retrospective.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a range of special events, including a lecture series and musical performance co-organized with Spain Arts + Culture. Information will be available at nortonsimon.org. 

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