No discussion in the article of how likely this is to be simply a coincidence?
There's a ton of ancient artifacts depicting humans in fanciful and non-realistic ways, and a ton of diseases that affect the body. That two of these will happen to superficially coincide is basically guaranteed.
The similarity here isn't even that great; if the statue had a huge goitre or something I'd be more inclined to buy it, but here it just looks like a little chubby squinting dude.
Exactly, I was waiting for them to show some writings of Velazquez about being inspired by the sculpture or by any other source, but was disappointed to find that it was more like an opinion unsourced piece.
There's a ton of ancient artifacts depicting humans in fanciful and non-realistic ways, and a ton of diseases that affect the body. That two of these will happen to superficially coincide is basically guaranteed.
The similarity here isn't even that great; if the statue had a huge goitre or something I'd be more inclined to buy it, but here it just looks like a little chubby squinting dude.