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PT. I

The Pachero’s advice, whilst working at a studio in Seville, was to “let the image stand out from the frame.” (Foucault, Michel The Order of Things)

PT. II

Escurial was the palace of our mirrored subjects: King Philip IV and Queen Mariana. Velasquez was commissioned to depict a series of models: we can, with great precision attribute identities to the subjects of this work: Dona Maria Augustina Sarmiente, Nieto, Nicolaso Pertuasto – the Italian Jester – who is placed at the steps in the foreground.

The “Infanta,” which serves as the touchstone for three subjects, that occupy spatial and X-fork lines is subject to the gaze: King Philip IV and his wife, the spectator, and the painter. She is innocent, our centerpiece for \textit{Las Meninas}, the ideal for spectacle and observation. Velasquez’s specialty is the dissolution of subject as the object of our perception at once sovereign and depiction.