Getty acquired a 17th-century Velázquez portrait in LA; the painting is now the first work to...

The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired a long-lost 17th-century portrait by Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, bringing the first work by the Baroque master into the museum’s permanent collection. The oil painting, titled Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares, was officially announced by the Los Angeles museum on 23 September 2026. Before its recent discovery in a private European collection, art historians knew the image only through a famous 17th-century engraving by Flemish printmaker Paulus Pontius, created in collaboration with Peter Paul Rubens. It is the first Velázquez painting held by a museum on the West Coast of the United States. The work will go on public display at the Getty Center’s East Pavilion in Los Angeles before traveling to Michigan for a museum exhibition next year.First Velázquez painting for Getty collectionThe acquisition fills an important gap in the Getty Museum’s collection. Until now, the museum had no works by Velázquez, despite its large collection of European art. "Velázquez was one of the greatest painters of early modern Europe and one of the most remarkable proponents of the long and multifaceted tradition of state portraiture," said Timothy Potts,...