Diego Velázquez & the Velazquez Crater - San Diego, CA
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Metro2
N 32° 43.909 W 117° 08.916
11S E 486076 N 3621566
This sculpture is located in the courtyard of the Casa de Prado in San Diego's Balboa Park.
Waymark Code: WMR738
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2016
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member saopaulo1
Views: 4

A placard near the sculpture and its partners depicting other artists indicates that this was the plaster casting models for the statues that are now on the facade of the Museum of Art. See (visit link)

The models seem to be be in excellent condition so it is unclear whether this is an original despite the language on the placard that seems to suggest that it is.
The artist is Furio Piccirilli and it is dated 1924.
The piece depicts Velazquez as a young man in period costume, one hand on his hip and a palette in his other hand as he seems to be pondering a model or his own painting.

Wikipedia (visit link) informs us:

"Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez ... ; baptized on June 6, 1599 – August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist and impressionist painters, in particular Édouard Manet. Since that time, famous modern artists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works.

Wikipedia does not have and article about the crater but it does have a list of the craters on Mercury (visit link) which merely notes:

"Velázquez 37.5 N 53.7 W 129 Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter"
Website of the Extraterrestrial Location: [Web Link]

Website of location on Earth: [Web Link]

Celestial Body: Mercury

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Metro2 visited Diego Velázquez & the Velazquez Crater  - San Diego, CA 05/17/2016 Metro2 visited it