Philip IV was in trouble. Spain’s far-flung empire, arguably the world’s most powerful, had seriously wobbled in the 1640s — and so had the king’s family life. When the bloody Thirty Years ...

Diego Velázquez’s “Queen Mariana of Austria” (1652-53), a monumental portrait of the daughter of the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand III, is at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., ...

Anne McElvoy talks to Laura Cumming about her researches into a Velázquez portrait; finds out about ... Laura Cumming's book is called The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez John Bratby ...