Juan de Pareja

Talk by Dr Carmen Fracchia, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Cultures and Languages

6.30pm-8.30pm on Friday 4 November 2016, in the Keynes Library (Room 114), Birkbeck, University of London, 43 Gordon Square. London WC1H 0PD

The Afro-Hispanic proverb Black but Human will serve as a lens through which I explore the ways in which certain early modern visual representation of slavery both embody and reproduce hegemonic visions of subaltern groups and at the same time provide material for critical and emancipatory practices by African slaves and ex-slaves themselves in Habsburg Spain. This paper will argue that deep ethnic prejudices against black slaves and ex-slaves in the crowns of Castile and Aragón did not prevent the emergence of the ‘Afro-Hispanic subject’ in the visual form articulated by a range of artists from Spain, the Spanish territories in Europe, and New Spain (Mexico). It will focus on the extraordinary seventeenth-century case of the portrait of the slave Juan de Pareja by his celebrated slave owner, Diego Velázquez and the self-portrait of freedman Juan de Pareja in his painting The Calling of St Matthew. This paper will also explore the ways in which the Black but Human topos codifies the multi-layered processes through which a ‘black nation’ forges a collective resistance and the ways in which it is articulated in Pareja’s 3-metre long masterpiece for the Habsburg court in Madrid (now in the basement of the Prado Museum).

El artículo analiza la figura del industrial y coleccionista Charles Deering (1852-1927), su relación con Ramon Casas (1866-1932) y Miquel Utrillo (1862-1934), así como la colección de arte que reunió en Maricel, la residencia que erigió en la localidad de Sitges (Barcelona). Así mismo, pondremos especial atención a las obras de los pintores andaluces allí presentes, Bermejo, Zurbarán, Juan de Pareja, Palomino, Esquivel y Romero de Torres, analizando su historia y cómo llegaron a la colección del norteamericano.

Abstract
The paper analyzes the personality of the industrialist and collector Charles Deering (1852-1927), his relationship with Ramon Casas (1866-1932) and Miquel Utrillo (1862-1934) and the art collection gathered in Maricel, the residence he build in Sitges (Barcelona). Also, we will focus on the works of Andalusian painters which were present in this art collection, such as Bermejo, Zurbarán, Juan de Pareja, Palomino, Esquivel and Romero de Torres. We will examine some aspects of their history and how they became a part of the Deering's collection.

This paper will focus on the extraordinary case of the portrait of the slave Juan de Pareja (1650) by his slave-owner, Diego Velázquez, painter at the Spanish Court in Madrid and the self-portrait of the freedman Juan de Pareja in his monumental religious painting The Vocation of St Matthew (1661, Basement, Prado Museum, Madrid) that remains still invisible to the general audience. This unique case will allow us to explore the concepts and visual depiction of enslaved and liberated Afro-Hispanic people in early modern Spain.