The Young Velazquez

Donated to the museum in 1925, the Yale University Art Gallery's Education of the Virgin-depicting Saint Anne teaching a young Virgin Mary to read-was long considered to be a work by an unknown Spanish artist. Considerably damaged, the painting was relegated to storage and never carefully studied until 2005, when John Marciari reattributed the work to Diego Velazquez (1599-1660), the most significant painter of the Spanish Golden Age. The extraordinary narrative of this painting and its reattribution is chronicled here, accompanied by a detailed description of the painting's conservation campaign and thoughtful analysis of the artist's technique.