Velázquez: Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid, 1635, a court fool of Philip IV.

Velázquez frequently painted court fools like Pablo (above) and Don Juan de Austria (five images earlier), who performed similar roles to Shakespeare's fools on stage, like the Fool in King Lear, played by Robert Armin (next image). Like Shakespeare Velázquez understood the role of fools as questioners of the established order from an outsider's perspective. Manet considered this portrait to be "the greatest painting he had ever seen" and one which illustrated "the essence of existential drama, man alone on a bare stage." For a full analysis of the shared views and devices of Velázquez and Shakespeare, see Hugh Mcrae Richmond, 'Shakespeare & Velazquez' in "Shakespeare Without Boundaries: Essays in honor of Dieter Mehl," ed. Christa Jansohn, University of Delaware, 2011, 241-52. It is also covered in part in the video "Shakespeare and the Spanish Connection" included in our Video Gallery. Original courtesy of the Prado Museum: photo by Erzalibillas, licensed via Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0