Portraits of Philip IV by Velazquez

Philip IV of Spain (1605–1665) was the subject of several paintings of the Baroque period, including those of Peter Paul Rubens, but the most notable painter to portray him was the Seville-born Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), who also painted other members of the court. He acquired such fame that he was made court painter and - uniquely - made a member of the Order of Santiago, which then excluded all painters and other manual labourers.

The most successful of his portraits of the king is the painting officially entitled The family of Philip IV - better known as Las Meninas - showing a typical scene in a mid-16th-century court. The king and his second wife Mariana of Austria are shown reflected in a mirror in the work. It is Velázquez's best-known work, a symbol of his whole oeuvre, and has gradually come to be recognised as a masterpiece of Spanish art.

The majority of Velazquez's paintings of the king and his relatives and nobles originally adorned the Palacio del Buen Retiro then, on its fall, moved to the Prado. Other royal subjects of his included Philip's first wife Elisabeth of France and their son Balthasar Charles, as well as Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel along with the infantes Carlos and Fernando de Austria, Philip's younger brothers. However, it is the quantity and quality of his paintings of the king himself that make them in particular the most representative of his works.