# Kitchen Scene

- By: Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660)
- Date: 1618–20
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 55.9 × 104.2 cm (21 7/8 × 41 1/8 in.); Framed: 74.9 × 125.1 × 7.3 cm (29 1/2 × 49 1/4 × 2 7/8 in.)
- Culture: Spain
- Credit line: Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/21934)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/68452725-eba5-06e3-46d2-50c678a5d672/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

In this modest kitchen scene, a type known as a bodegón (from the Spanish word for pantry), Diego Velázquez depicted a young African woman at work, surrounded by exquisitely rendered pots, jugs, a mortar and pestle, and a crumpled paper wrapper for spices. In creating this painting, Velázquez may have used an enslaved woman from his or an associate’s household as a model. Slavery was widespread in the young artist’s hometown of Seville, Spain, and Velázquez, his father, and his teacher, Francisco Pacheco, were all enslavers.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0