We know very little about his painting. In the inventory of the Madrid Royal Alcazar begun by Mazo in 1666 at the Death of Philip the fourth and six years after the death of Velazquez, Mazo described a large painting "Portraying the infanta margarita with her ladies in waiting, and a female dwarf by the hand of Velazquez."

Palomino tells us that this masterpiece was finished in 1656, and that while Velazques was painting it, the royal family often came to watch him work. Forty years later, a new court painter, Luca Gordana, proclaimed that it holds the 'theology of painting.'

As we contemplate this work, the soothing tones of a clavier piece written by Bach accompany us through this scene.