Luis del Mazo

In this intimate portrait, the artist paints a study of his young son, Luis. Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo (c. 1612-1667) created this painting in preparation for a group portrait of his family of c. 1664/5, The Family of the Artist, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. In the finished group portrait, Luis, the second of Mazo's four sons by his second wife, Francisca de la Vega (d. 1665), is depicted alongside his mother, brothers, and four of Mazo’s six children with his first wife, Francisca Velázquez (1619-1658). 

Mazo was a close follower of his father-in-law Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), through whom Mazo received royal appointments. After Velázquez’s death in 1660, Mazo would replace him as the official court painter for Philip IV’s court in Madrid.