Juan de Pareja was Velázquez's enslaved assistant, working alongside him in his studio in Madrid for years.
In 1650, Velázquez travelled to Rome and painted this portrait of his assistant as a kind of warm-up - to sharpen his technique before painting Pope Innocent X.
When he exhibited it, the reaction was overwhelming - with artists reportedly saying that everything else in the room looked like a painting, but this looked like a man.
The portrait led to Juan de Pareja's formal emancipation.
Velázquez freed him in a document signed in Rome in 1654.
Juan went on to become a painter in his own right - his own surviving works hang in Spanish collections.
Fun fact: when the Met acquired the painting in 1971 for $5.54 million - it was the highest price ever paid at auction for any painting at the time.
It remains one of the most important purchases in the Met's history.
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