“I’ll miss you,” I whispered.
He took my hands in his and kissed me gently on the fingertips. “Keep painting.”
“Oh, I’ll never create anything worthwhile.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s good for you. It keeps your mind occupied.”
“Paquita was better at it than I.”
“Yes,” he said. He looked for a moment as though he were going to cry, but instead, he bent down and kissed me on the lips. “Good-bye, my dear, my Venus.”
“Good-bye,” I murmured. “Dios te acompañe.”
He walked through the door to the train of vehicles lined up in the entrance yard. I made my way back to Velázquez’s apartments and gathered up my things. I had decided not to stay in his rooms at the palace while he was gone. I could have, but the noise and gossip of the Court got on my nerves. I would be more comfortable at home, where I had an easel set up in the studio Velázquez still sometimes used in the house on Convalescientes Street.
Velázquez’s quarters in the Buen Retiro felt vacant and lonely. The heavy walnut secretary stood devoid of clutter, and the armoire languished open and empty in a corner. Without Velázquez’s commanding presence, nothing made sense. The curtains hung forlornly along the window frames—they seemed to be the wrong color. In the atelier the easels stood like three-legged monsters looming in a weird and ethereal sunlight. Although I had every right to be there, I felt as though I were defiling a sacred space. I gathered up my things, called for my carriage, and left the Court. I was an old woman now, and so I rode alone, without an escort. I opened the curtain a bit so that I could enjoy the fresh April air. Not enough to compromise decorum, but enough to feel the sun, warm and comforting, on my brow. The street smelled of jasmine and cinnamon and garbage. Tiger-striped gazanias and geraniums of every hue bloomed on balconies. The sounds of carriages and carts filled the morning. Somewhere, a buñolera hawked her sweet, sticky fritters. “Buñuelos!” she cried. “Compre buñueeeelooos!” Somewhere else, the throaty croon of a drunken soldier. The sounds of the street brought me back to that time, long ago, when I had lazed on a maroon sheet that would someday turn charcoal-colored, posing for Velázquez.
Once home, I retired to the estrado to rest a while and change clothes. Then, I sat down at my easel. It would be hours until the midday meal. I should take advantage of the morning light, I thought. Meticulously, I began to arrange objects on a table—fruit, a vase with flowers, a book, a squab. I put on my spectacles and dipped the brush into a pot of crimson.
Stories of the meeting on the Isle of Pheasants reached the Court soon after it took place. María Teresa—now called Marie Thérèse—was married by proxy while she clung to her nannies and her ladies-in-waiting. Terrified that she’d produce a French heir to the Spanish throne, Haro made her renounce all rights to the succession for herself and her children, while Mazarin required an enormous dowry that never got paid. After the papers were signed, His Majesty accompanied his daughter to the waiting diplomats, who ferried her off to France.
I can imagine the little infanta, now the queen of the country that until the day before had been the archenemy of her own. I see her huddled in the carriage with her maids, bumping along, tears rolling down her cheeks. She knows she’ll never see her father or her homeland again. She’ll be married in Saint Jean de Luz, and then her new life will begin. The French royal custom of consummating marriage in public must weigh on her. She must wonder what it will be like to be undressed by her ladies-in-waiting in front of spectators, and then disappear under the covers with a husband she doesn’t know. Fortunately for her, her new mother-in-law, Anne of Austria, will dispense with this heinous convention at the last minute and allow the infanta and King Louis to celebrate their wedding night in private.
But the infanta and her tribulations were really of little importance to me. What mattered to me was Velázquez. He was old and sick, and he was pushing himself beyond endurance. I was worried he’d collapse right into the pudding. I needn’t have fretted, however. Long before he returned, people were saying that he had cut such a dashing figure that he’d actually outshone everyone else. His bearing was aristocratic; his comportment, gentlemanly. His speech was measured and melodious. His style was impeccable. Dressed in a black suit trimmed with Milanese silver point lace, he was the epitome of Spanish fashion. At his side fell a fine rapier in a silver sheath. Around his neck, on a heavy gold chain, hung a diamond- and sapphire-studded medallion with a red enameled cross of Santiago—the same one that had lain on his secretary the day he left Madrid. Gossips said that the French, in their plumes and pastels, looked ridiculous, while the Spaniards, elegant in black, looked dignified, regal. And the most magnificent of all was Velázquez.
The manservant unfastened Velazquez’s travel cape and folded it over his arm.
“Shall I fetch your black silk doublet, Señor?”
“No, not yet.”
“Naturally, Señor. I understand. Will you be changing out of your traveling clothes, Señor? Would you like to sit down so I can take off your boots?”
“No, I’ll stay as I am. Give me my cape.”
“Which cape, Señor? Surely your mercy wishes to …”
“For God’s sake, Lorenzo! Don’t assume you know what I want to do!”
“Of course, Señor. I’m sorry. It’s only that you just arrived after such a long journey. After all, you’ve been away for three months, and I thought …”
“Call for my carriage. I’m going out.”
“But like that, Señor? In your travel clothes?”
Velázquez turned and stared at the man with his black, decimating eyes. Lorenzo handed his master the cape and bowed. I wasn’t there, of course, but Velázquez described the scene to me later that evening, both of us giggling like when we were children.
He came to me just as he was, in his dusty boots. They must have told him at Court that I had gone back to the house on Convalescientes Street. I didn’t hear him enter the studio. My back was toward the door and I was concentrating on a new painting, on creating shadows out of burgundies and purples, just as he had taught me.
He stood behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Juana, mi amor,” he murmured.
Somehow I wasn’t startled. I laid down the brush and smiled without getting up or turning around.
He bent over and kissed my temple.
“You’re getting better,” he said. It was the first and only time he complimented my painting.
“You think so?”
I stood, and he took me in his arms. I laid my head on the grimy threads of his travel cape. He slipped it off and threw it on the ground. Then he took my chin in his fingers, tilted my face toward his, and kissed me deeply.
“Yes,” he whispered softly. “Yes, Juana, I think so.”
EPILOGUE
MY GRANDMOTHER JUANA ALWAYS SEEMED A MODEL OF PROpriety. She was a plain-looking woman with lusterless gray hair and a rutted brow, and she wore the modest, dreary clothing that became a woman of her age. After my grandfather died, she entered a convent, where she lived as a boarder until Our Heavenly Father called her away from this valley of tears. I never suspected that she had once posed for a lewd painting until I read the papers she left in the convent. She had wisely kept it a secret because her shameful conduct was an offense against God, our Holy Mother Church, and the honor of our family.
My grandfather, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, was Court painter during the reign of our most Catholic King Felipe IV. He was a noble, a knight of the Order of Santiago, a highly respected courtier, and a devout Catholic. He produced many dignified paintings of our most Catholic King Felipe IV and his family, as well as works for the propagation of the faith such as a Virgin and a Saint John the Evangelist, both of which hang in Seville; the Apostle Thomas; Mary and Martha with Jesus; Saint Anthony and Saint Paul in the desert; and a Christ on the Cross, which hangs in a convent in Madrid. I don’t believe the horrible things my gra
ndmother writes about our most Catholic King Felipe IV because it’s well-known that he was a truly great man—a saint. Her vile descriptions are nothing more than justifications for her own bad behavior. I should say that I also know nothing about the painting of Venus my grandmother describes in her writing.
My grandfather died less than two months after he returned to Madrid from the Isle of Pheasants, where he had gone to assist our most Catholic King Felipe IV in the marriage of his daughter, María Teresa, to the king of France. Soon after he arrived home, my grandfather fell ill and withdrew to his apartments. When the Court physicians realized his time was near, they advised the king, who called for the archbishop of Tyre, Patriarch of the Indies. The blessed archbishop preached to my grandfather and helped him to enter peacefully into the kingdom. His day of Glory occurred on August 6, 1660. Afterward, his servants dressed him in the habit of the Order of Santiago and his body lay in stillness in his bedroom. The next day, he was carried to the Church of San Juan, where he was buried, while all the great noblemen and ladies looked on. It was a solemn and blessed event.
At the time, I had already made up my mind to take vows. I entered the Order of Saint Clare shortly after my grandfather passed to a better life, and I was sent almost immediately to the Convent of San Francisco y Santa Clara on the outskirts of Seville. Although I had never been to that city, I felt a great affinity for it, as my great-grandfather Francisco Pacheco had had a famous art school there, and both my grandmother Juana and my mother Francisca were born there. Besides, there is much need of convents in that place of sin, for many fallen women roam its streets. Our fathers go forth to proselytize to them, and sometimes, when the sinners repent sincerely and show signs of refinement, we take them into our holy house. It may seem unlikely that any such woman would exhibit finesse, but in this calamitous age, ladies of breeding sometimes fall on such hard times that they engage in wickedness in order to survive.
Seville is also full of beatas, the ghastly women who claim to have heard the Word of God but are actually frauds. We know they are frauds because they wander shamelessly through the city, preaching on street corners and promising salvation, when our Mother Church teaches that women are not to preach but must remain silent. The Holy Inquisition rounds up these false holy women and incarcerates them, or places them in convents like ours. Of course, it is repugnant to us to have them near, but we know it is our Christian duty to receive them and so we do. What I cannot believe is that my grandmother was as depraved as they.
Soon after my grandfather went to join my precious mother in heaven with God, my grandmother entered a convent in Madrid, where she spent her last days writing her life story. She passed out of this life about a year after my grandfather. Only God knows if He forgave her for her sins. Sometimes I think it was a blessing that both of them passed out of this world when they did, for they were spared the plunge into darkness of our dear homeland. The same year my grandmother died, the king’s long-awaited heir Carlos II was born, and from the beginning it was rumored that he was mad or feeble-minded. Our most Catholic Majesty Felipe II went to God five years after my grandfather, and now his son sits on the throne, hidden from view, manipulated by validos, sterile and, from what they say, blubbering into his supper. Only God knows what will become of us. Is this punishment for the impiety one finds everywhere? For the immorality and the corruption? Alas, God has punished us all for the sins of a few, although He can’t have forgotten that it was we, the Spaniards, with our blood and fortune, who protected the One True Faith against the incursions of the heretics from the north. He won’t abandon us, I know He won’t. He is testing us, as He tested Job, but He will restore us to our ancient glory in the end.
My father, Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, was the executor of my grandfather’s will, and after Don Diego went to heaven, my father made an inventory of his belongings and attended to the distribution. I don’t know how much my grandmother Juana inherited, but she had enough to pay her convent fees and live out her life in a house of God. After she died, her things went to my sisters and brothers, some of whom married into very fine families. As a Sister of Saint Clare, I neither wanted nor received anything. All I know is that her writings were not among her bequeathals.
I didn’t see her papers until years later, when I was getting to be an old woman myself. It seems that after my grandmother’s passing, her story was gathered up by a member of the convent community named Cintia—no doubt a devout and holy sister who wanted to spare my grandmother’s memory the stain her scribbling would leave on it. This dear Cintia kept the shameful story of Venus to herself for many years. When she finally reached the moment when she knew that God would soon call her, too, she sewed the pages into a burlap casing and had them delivered to me by a messenger. There is no doubt in my mind about why she chose me to receive them. Like her, I am a bride of Christ, and she wanted me to know the truth about Juana Pacheco de Velázquez, so that I could protect my soul from contamination. She wanted me to purge my heart of the sinfulness of my forebears. My dear Cintia! I thank you and I bless you! May you live forever in Glory!
I have written these paragraphs in my spiritual chronicle as a sort of confession, but now I am perplexed about what to do with them. If I show them to the prioress, she might find me unworthy to continue here at the convent. And if I show them to my confessor Fray Jerónimo, as I know I should, he might tell the prioress. Even though information revealed in confession is confidential, Fray Jerónimo is known for sometimes being indiscreet. If they cast me out, where will I go? I am no longer young. Will any of my brothers or sisters have me, a lamb who has devoted her life to God and knows nothing of the ways of the world? I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do.
Ana Martínez del Mazo y Pacheco de Velázquez
Signed this 16th day of November, in the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1675
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Diego Velázquez was the most famous Spanish painter of the seventeenth century, and The Rokeby Venus was his most enigmatic painting. For centuries, art historians have conjectured about the identity of the model. Velázquez cleverly angled the mirror in Cupid’s hand so that it does not reflect her face. Scholars have calculated that a more realistic rendering of the reflection would show the area from the left hip to the left shoulder. Thus, the woman in the mirror could be anyone … or no one in particular.
In I Am Venus, I undertake an exploration of Venus’s identity and offer a playful and surprising conclusion. The book is based on years of research. The historical facts regarding the profligacy of Philip IV, the corruption of the count-duke of Olivares, the construction of the Palacio del Buen Retiro, and the details of the Thirty Years’ War are all accurate. Most of the details of Velázquez’s life are also accurate: his ascendance to the position of Court painter, his trips to Italy, his illegitimate child, the death of his daughters Ignacia and Francisca. Recently some scholars have suggested that Velázquez was of converso (Jewish) background, which may be why he was so touchy about matters of class and lineage. However, this and many other aspects of Velázquez’s personal history remain in the realm of conjecture, leaving plenty of room for the novelist to invent.
Velázquez’s wife, Juana Pacheco, was a real person. The daughter of Velázquez’s mentor and father-in-law Francisco Pacheco, Juana was born in 1602 and died a few days after her husband, in 1660. For the purposes of my story, I have extended her life a bit. Juana left no trace of her inner reality, and so I have reconstructed her as I imagine her. Juana’s friends and servants are all fictional characters, but the descriptions of her milieu are based on historical documents.
I am indebted to many researchers whose work enabled me to recreate Velázquez, his family, and his world. Velázquez, by Jonathan Brown, and Velázquez: su tiempo, su vida, su obra, directed by Jorge Montoro, provided me with essential information about the painter’s life and work. Velázquez, the Technique of Genius, by Jonathan Brown and Carmen Garrido, contain detailed analyses
of the artist’s procedures and practices and helped me to describe his work. The Late Paintings of Velázquez, by Giles Knox, provides additional information about Velázquez’s development as an artist. Another of Brown’s books, A Palace for a King, contains descriptions of the Palacio del Buen Retiro and Philip IV’s art collections. Andreas Prater’s Venus at Her Mirror contains much relevant material about the Rokeby Venus and about the history of Venus as an artistic subject. The essays in The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez, edited by Suzanne L. Stratton-Pruitt, were valuable resources for data on Velázquez’s formation and the Court environment. Two that I found to be particularly useful were Zahira Véliz’s “Becoming an Artist in Seventeenth-Century Spain” and Antonio Feros’s “‘Sacred and Terrifying Gazes’: Languages and Images of Power in Early Modern Spain.” Maribel Bandrés Oto’s La moda en la pintura: Velázquez gave me a good understanding of fashion in seventeenth-century Spain and helped me to dress my characters. Several general studies of seventeenth-century Spain and the Court of Philip IV were also helpful, among them Early Modern Spain: A Social History, by James Casey; El rey se divierte and La mala vida en la España de Felipe IV, both by José Deleito y Piñuela; and The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline, by J. H. Elliott.
I would like to express my gratitude to the novelist Janice Eidus for her editorial comments and to my agent, Anna Ghosh, for her support and encouragement. I am especially indebted to Mark Krotov, my editor at The Overlook Press, for his excellent suggestions. I also wish to thank my husband, Mauro E. Mujica, for his patience and good humor during the writing process.
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