Two artists in Rome: travelers, Spaniards, on a mission to learn from the best and buy for the king. Are they friends? Not that. Colleagues? Only in a very strained manner of speaking. When Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez arrives in Italy in 1649, tasked by Philip IV to bring new artworks and plaster casts back to Spain, the painter brings along his assistant Juan de Pareja, who has been enslaved in Velázquez’s household and studio for nearly 20 years. The two sailed over together, from Málaga to Genoa, as part of a royal flotilla; they visited Milan, Venice, Florence; and now they are setting up a studio in Rome, where Pareja stretches the canvases, grinds pigments into oils, and possibly paints replicas too.