Philip IV in Brown and Silver

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Philip IV in Brown and Silver

Artwork

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The Portrait of Philip IV or Philip IV in Brown and Silver is a portrait of Philip IV of Spain painted by Diego Velázquez. It is sometimes known as Silver Philip and is now in the National Gallery in London. It was the main portrait of Philip painted by Velázquez in the 1630s, used as the model for many workshop versions.The date of the work is not certain - the National Gallery website gives 1631/32, whilst Carrassat gives 1635 - but it was definitely the first portrait the artist produced after his first trip to Italy, in that it adopts the softer and more colourful palette of the Venetian school. There is some evidence that the portrait may have taken a number of years to complete, accounting for the uncertainty. Life size, it is unlike most portraits of Philip IV, in that it does not show him in his usual wholly black costume. Instead it shows him in a brown and silver embroidered costume (thus giving the portrait its name), painted with small rapid strokes, and wearing the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece on a golden chain. There are several pentimenti that fine tune the composition. The signature is on the letter Philip holds, a fictive petition from the painter to him. This is a sign of the importance Velázquez attached to the work, as he only signed a few of his paintings.