# Pope Innocent X [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [VELAZQUEZ, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 49,2 x 41,3 cm ## Commentary Pope Innocent X c. 1650 Oil on canvas, 49,2 x 41,3 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington Perhaps the preeminent Spanish artist of the seventeenth century, Velázquez was, from 1623 on, court painter to Philip IV in Madrid. In 1650 Velázquez was sent to Italy to buy paintings for one of his monarch's palaces; while in Rome the artist was commissioned to portray the Pope. The final version \(now in the Galleria Doria, Rome\) was preceded by several small sketches. This canvas was executed probably by someone in his circle. Velázquez was given the unenviable task of depicting the most powerful and, according to contemporaries, the ugliest man in Rome. The artist was successful, for when the Pontiff saw the portrait he is said to have remarked, "troppo vero" \(all too true!\). ## Related artworks - [A White Horse]() - [A Young Man \(detail\)]() - [Abbess Jerónima de la Fuente]() - [Aesop]() - [Arachne]() - [Breakfast]() - [Cardinal Infante Don Fernando as a Hunter]() - [Christ in the House of Mary and Martha \(detail\)]() - [Christ in the House of Mary and Martha]() - [Christ on the Cross]() - [Court Dwarf Don Antonio el Inglés]() - [Democritus]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()