The painter's painter. Light, color and penetrating portraits from Spain's Golden Age luminary. Manet called him "the greatest painter of all. " Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Monet, Renoir, and Degas were heavily influenced by the paintings of Philip IV's grand chamberlain. Francis Bacon famously painted a study of his portrait of Pope Innocent X. Indeed, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599-1660) was more than the most important painter of the Spanish Golden Age. He is one of the most admired European painters who ever lived, and an authority and influence for generations of artists to come. This catalog raisonne brings together Velazquez's complete works, jaw-droppingly reproduced in extra-large format, with a selection of enlarged details and brand new photography of recently restored paintings, brought about by the joint initative of TASCHEN and Wildenstein. The book's dazzling images are accompanied by insightful commentary from Jose Lopez-Rey on Velazquez's interest in human liveliness and equal attention to all subjects, from an old woman frying eggs to a pope or a king, as well as his commitment to color and light, which would influence the Impressionists over two centuries later.