Velázquez was paid for this portrait of the king on December 4, 1624 (for the receipt, see metmuseum.org/collections). The artist had arrived in Madrid in the summer of 1623 and was made painter to the king that August. An important person at court, Don García Pérez de Araciel, commissioned the portrait, an autograph repetition of the official portrait Velázquez had painted for the king. Philip is shown wearing a gold chain and the emblem of the Order of the Golden Fleece.