Velazquez exhibition attracts record ticket sales

London's National Gallery's hotly anticipated Velazquez exhibition opens today, with a record number of advance ticket sales ensuring it will be a blockbuster.

More than 13,000 tickets for the show have been sold – making it a bigger draw than any other exhibition at the National Gallery including Vermeer, Titian and Caravaggio.

The National Gallery is, for the first time, clearing four rooms in the main gallery to make room for the 46 works on show, around half the surviving number by Velazquez.

The gallery possesses the largest collection of the Spanish artist’s paintings outside the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

These nine works, together with seven others from British collections, will form the centrepiece of the exhibition.

Eight works have been loaned from the Prado, including the largest work in the show, Apollo at the Forge of Vulcan and the sensitive portrait of the court dwarf, Francisco Lezcano.

The show also features The Rokeby Venus, also known as The Toilet of Venus, which is one of Velazquez’s best-known works and was a controversial piece when it was painted.

The British began to collect Velazquez from the late 18th century, and the artist became an inspiration to names like Sargent, Whistler, Picasso, Dali and Bacon.

Today he is recognised as one of the world’s greatest painters of historic scenes, portraits and mythology.