Portrait Of A Young Girl By The Spanish Artist Velázquez At The Royal Academy In London 2023 Editorial Photo

Velázquez's Portrait of a Young Girl is surely among this great artist's most immediately captivating and appealing paintings. However, buried beneath thick layers of discolored varnish for many decades, the work had been, in effect, reduced to a mere image—almost a stand-in for the real object. The painting's true, cool palette and silvery tonality, as well as its assured but delicate facture, were no longer evident. It was like a charming photo of a person we had yet to meet