Diego Velázquez: The Waterseller of Seville

The subject of the painting is the waterseller. This was a common trade for the lower classes in Velázquez’s Seville. The jars and the topic of victuals recall the paintings called bodegón…In the foreground sit the seller’s gigantic pots of water, glistening with streams of running water. So large and rounded, they almost protrude out of the painting into the observer’s space. The seller hands a freshly poured glass of water to the boy. In it sits a fig, a perfumer intended to make the water taste fresher – something still done in Seville today…Velázquez’s respect for the poor is evidence in the idea that the simple, elemental nature of poverty is profound…
— The Waterseller of Seville (Velázquez), Wikipedia

Diego Velázquez, The Waterseller of Seville, 1618-1622, Apsley House, London. Wikimedia

Tags: Ceramics, Diego Velázquez, El aguador de Sevilla, masterpiece, oil painting, pottery, Seville Spain, The Waterseller of Seville, waterseller