Page of Head of a Girl by VELZQUEZ, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

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Head of a Girl

c. 1618
Chalk drawing, 150 x 117 mm
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid

Even in Seville, where he was accepted into the painters' guild of St Luke before he was eighteen and then, in 1620, opened a workshop and employed apprentices himself, Velzquez was already embarking on portraiture, a path that would lead him to a place among the major portraitists in the history of art. There are around half a dozen portraits extant of very different people from Velzquez' early period in Seville, including two sensitive drawings vibrant with life, both showing a young girl and dated to 1618. Since very few of the artist's authentic drawings have survived, these two are particularly worthy of notice.