ABSTRACT
Very little is known about Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo before 1633, the year he married Velazquez's eldest daughter, Francisca. He was born in the province of Cuenca sometime about 1612, but the whereabouts of his training remain a mystery. He must have been in Velazquez's workshop sometime before his marriage to Francisca, so it is quite possible that, like Velazquez himself, he had been his future father-in-law's apprentice. The artistic relevance of Martinez del Mazo is difficult to gauge, since a great portion of his extant work consists of repetitions of portraits of the royal family painted by Velazquez. Although he often attains in these such a high level of quality that they have been frequently attributed to Velazquez, these are pictures in which his own artistic personality is submerged in that of the author of the originals.
