Bacchus, pale and half-naked, places a wreath on a kneeling young man while a group of weathered Spanish peasants gathers to drink. Velázquez painted it for Philip IV, who paid 100 ducats, just before his first trip to Italy. Setting a classical god among street drinkers turns myth into something close to a tavern scene; in Spain it is known as Los borrachos, The Drunks.
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At the god's feet, a bottle and an earthenware jug form a small still life, like those in Velázquez's early Seville kitchen scenes.
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