MADRID.- One of the most radical and influential paintings in the history of art has quietly left the walls of the Museo del Prado. Velázquez’s Pablo de Valladolid (c. 1635), long admired for its daring simplicity and modern spirit, has been transferred from Gallery 15 to the museum’s conservation studios, where it will undergo a comprehensive technical study and restoration.

The project is supported by the Fundación Iberdrola España, a long-standing partner of the Prado’s conservation programs. Before any visible intervention begins, specialists will carry out an in-depth analysis of the painting to better understand its materials, its creative process, and its current state of preservation.

A portrait that broke the rules

Painted during Velázquez’s early years at the court of Philip IV, Pablo de Valladolid stands apart even within the artist’s remarkable body of work. The sitter—documented as a court entertainer between 1632 and 1648—appears alone, suspended in an undefined space. There is no architectural setting, no furniture, no horizon line. The ground itself is suggested only by a faint shadow at his feet.

This audacious reduction of pictorial elements was unprecedented in 17th-century painting. Velázquez strips the scene down to its essentials, forcing the viewer to focus entirely on gesture, presence, and attitude. The result is a portrait that feels startlingly contemporary, centuries ahead of its time.

Art historians date the work to between 1632 and 1635, a period when Velázquez was experimenting with new ways of representing reality—less through description, more through suggestion.

The painting that stunned Manet

Few works at the Prado have had such a profound afterlife. When Édouard Manet visited Madrid in 1865, he was seeking distance from the harsh criticism he faced in Paris. What he found in Velázquez’s paintings—especially Pablo de Valladolid—changed his understanding of what painting could be.

Manet famously wrote that the background “disappears” and that what surrounds the figure is simply “air.” In a letter to Henri Fantin-Latour, he went even further, calling it “perhaps the most astonishing piece of painting ever made.”

That revelation would directly shape Manet’s own work, particularly The Fifer (1866), and help open the door to modern painting—one no longer bound to illusionistic space or detailed settings, but to the power of paint itself.

What the restoration will reveal

Before conservators touch the surface of the canvas, the Prado will apply advanced, non-invasive technologies recently incorporated into its research facilities. Using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanning, specialists will map the chemical elements present in the paint layers, revealing Velázquez’s material choices in unprecedented detail.

At the same time, multispectral infrared reflectography will allow researchers to look beneath the visible surface, detecting changes, underdrawings, or compositional adjustments invisible to the naked eye. Together, these studies will provide a richer picture of how the painting was made—and how best to preserve it for the future.