Kitchen Scene

In this modest kitchen scene, a type known as a bodegón (from the Spanish word for pantry), Diego Velázquez depicted a young African woman at work, surrounded by exquisitely rendered pots, jugs, a mortar and pestle, and a crumpled paper wrapper for spices. In creating this painting, Velázquez may have used an enslaved woman from his or an associate’s household as a model. Slavery was widespread in the young artist’s hometown of Seville, Spain, and Velázquez, his father, and his teacher, Francisco Pacheco, were all enslavers.