DIEGO VELAZOUEZ AND HIS TIMES. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/diegovelazquezhi00just_0 Diego Velazquez Diego Velazquez AND HIS TIMES. BY CARL JUSTI, ( PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN. TRANSLATED BY PROFESSOR A. H. KEANE, B.A., F.R.G.S., AND REVISED BY THE AUTHOR . WITH A FRONTISPIECE OF VELAZQUEZ’ OWN PORTRAIT, ETCHED BY FORBERG; FIFTY-TWO WOOD ENGRAVINGS, AND A PLAN OF THE OLD PALACE AT MADRID. LONDON : H. GREVEL & CO, 33, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. i88q. PRINTED BY IIAZELL, WATSON, & VINEY, LD. LONDON AND AYLESBURY. PREFACE. I N this English edition of Professor Justi’s great work on “Velazquez and His Times” the text has been closely- adhered to throughout ; and the fact that the proof-sheets have passed through the Author’s hands will perhaps be a sufficient guarantee of its fidelity to the original. At the same time it was not thought necessary to reproduce a number of pieces justificatives and other documents of various kinds, by which the work would have been needlessly encumbered, and references to which will doubtless be found sufficient for all practical purposes. Some historical and descriptive details not bearing directly on the argument have here and there been also omitted with the Author’s sanction. But in all other respects the text will be found intact, and nothing has certainly been curtailed by which the vivid picture of the great central figure, whether as a man of striking personality or an artist of astounding originality, might in any way be impaired. The few explanatory and other notes added by the I ranslator are in all cases duly certified. Special care has been bestowed on the Index, where fulness has been aimed at, even at the risk of redundance. VI Preface. It may here be mentioned that, although the work was dedicated by permission to the late Emperor Frederick, he never lived to see its completion. There was a special fitness in this dedication, which had suggested itself so far back as the year 1883, during the then Crown Prince’s visit to Madrid. On that occasion this illustrious friend of Art had been more profoundly impressed by the works of Velazquez than by any of the other treasures of the world-renowned Prado Museum. A. H. K. CONTENTS. FIRST BOOK . — INTROD UCTOR 1 1 Introduction ........... The Galleries Biographical Data ......... Seville ............ The Poets and Literary Circles Medireval Art .......... The Mannerists .......... Juan de las Roelas ......... Francisco de Herrera ......... Francisco Pacheco ......... “Art of Painting” ........ “ Book of Portraits Venetian Painting El Mudo ... El Greco The Toledan School Orrente .......... Maino ........... Tristan ........... PAGE I 7 9 16 21 25 30 35 33 42 47 49 50 5 ° 51 54 54 54 SECOND BOOK. — VELAZQUEZ' YOUTH. The Family ............ His Student Years . National Types ........... The Water-Carrier of Seville ....... The Old Woman and Omelet ....... The Mendicant and Globe Religious Subjects .......... St. John in Patinos ......... The Woman and Dragon The Epiplidny .......... The Shepherds .......... The Two Journeys to the Court ........ The Appointment Madrid . 59 61 68 69-72 72- 3 73 - 4 75 76 76-7 78-80 81-3 83 88 9i Contents. viii PACE Art Circles 93 Court and Palace, Madrid . . 96 Philip IV. ............... 104 Olivares 113 Charles Prince of Wales 120 The Italian Court Painters . . 121 Caxesi ............... 123 Nardi 123 Carducho 124 Carducho’s Work on Painting 126 The Expulsion of the Moriscos 129 Rubens in Madrid . . 131 Influence of Rubens on Velazquez .......... 133 The Bacchus {The Bor rachos ox Topers') 139-46 THIRD BOOK. — THE FIRST JOURNEY TO ROME. Eastward Ho ! 149 In Venice .151 Titian and Tintoretto 153 Rome in the year 1630 156 Art and Artists 158 The Pictures of the Twelve Masters 160 His Own Portrait 163-4 In the Villa Medici 164-6 Triumphal Arch of Titus 167-8 The Forge of Vulcan ... 168-73 Joseph's Coat 174-5 Naples : Mary of Hungary 175-9 Jusepe Ribera 179 FOURTH BOOK . — THE DAYS OF BUEN RETIRO. Official Duties . . 187 Buen Retiro 189 Park Views 196 The Fountain of the Tritons 1 97-9 The Surrender of Breda 199-209 Hunting and Hunting-pieces ........... 209 The Boar-hunt 212-8 The Stag-hunt . 21 8-20 The Three Royal Sportsmen 220-4 The Master of the Hounds 224-6 Alonso Cano in Madrid • . . . . 226 Murillo in Madrid .... 229 The Crucifixion in San Placido 236-41 Christ at the Pillar 241-8 Contents. IX FIFTH BOOK . — PORTRAITS OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD. PAGE Velazquez as a Portrait Painter . . . . . . . . . . .251 Female Portraits . The Sibyl Lady with a Fan . Juana de. Miranda The Duchess of Chcvreusc Isabella of Bourbon The Two Little Maidens 262 . 265-6 . 266-8 268-71 . 271-2 • 272-5 • 275-7 Celebrities and Obscurities 277 Quevedo 277-81 The Sculptor Martinez Montahes . 281-4 Cardinal Borja, or Borgia 284-91 Francis d’Este, Duke of Modena 291-4 Admiral Adrian Pulido 295-8 The Count of Bcnavente 298-9 Portraits of Unknown Persons ........... 299 The Marquis of Castel Rodrigo 301-3 The Equestrian Portraits 304 The Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV. 3°5-9 The Fraga Portrait 309- 1 1 Equestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar 3x1-3 Equestrian Portrait of Olivares 31 3-6 The Portraits of Philip III. and Queen Margarita of Austria .... 316-7 Last Portraits of Olivares 317-9 Julianillo 3 19-2 1 Prince Balthasar Carlos 321-8 The Child 321 The Little Rider 322 The Little Sportsman 324 The Little Wooer ............. 325 Town Views : Saragossa 328-31 The Fortress of Pamplona . . . . . . . . . . . .331-2 The Conversation ............. 333-6 Group of Cavaliers . . ........... 333 Two Groups of Courtiers 334 X Contents. SIXTH BOOK . — THE SECOND JOURNEY TO ROME. PAGE Occasion of the Journey 339 Picture-dealing in Venice 340 Naples in 1649 343 Rome in 1650 345 Velazquez’ Relations to the Roman Artists 347 Juan de Pareja 352-4 Innocent X. 354-62 The Antiques 362 Metelli and Coionna 364 SEVENTH BOOK. — LAST DECADE. The Last Years . . . . : 371 The Office of Palace Marshal (Aposentador de Palacio) 372 Administration of the Galleries 375 The Cross of Santiago , 377 The Completion of the Escorial 378 The “Memoria” . • 382 EIGHTH BOOK. — 1 1 ’ORA'S OF TIIE TIIIRl) AND LAST PERIOD. The Third Style 389 Queen Mariana oj Austria 395-402 The Infanta Maria Theresa 402-5 The Princess Margaret 405-10 The Infant Don Philip Prosper . 410-2 Last Portraits of Philip IV. 412-3 The Family Portrait (Las Aleninas ; The Maids of Honour') .... 414-22 Velazquez' Family 422-5 Portraits of Velazquez 425-7 The Spinners {Las Hilanderas ) . . . 427-33 Dwarfs, Buffoons and Jesters 433 Cristdbal de Pernia ........... 438-40 Don Juan de Austria 440-1 Pablillos de Valladolid 442-3 The Marquis del Borro 443-5 The Dwarfs . 445 Sebastian de Morra 447-9 El Printo 448-9 Contents. xi Idiots and Imbeciles El Bobo de Coria El Niilo de Vallccas .... The Philosophers Esop Menippus ...... The Ugly in Art ...... Mythologies ....... Mars Mercury and Argus .... Venus with the Mirror Religious Paintings of the Last Period The Coronation of the Virgin The Anchorites {SS. Paul and Anthony') The Journey to the Pyrenees The End .... ... Velazquez’ Successors Carreno Coello • 449 449 - 5 ° 449-51 • 45i • 451-3 • 453-5 • 455 • 457 458-61 . 461-2 . 462-6 466 . 466-9 469-74 • 474 478 480 480 481 Index 485 ERRATA. Page 87, line 5 from end, for Charton, read Churton. „ 96, „ 2 from top, for CofTington, read Cottington. FIRST BOOK. INTRO D UCTORY. INTRODUCTION THE GALLERIES — BIOGRAPHICAL DATA — SEVILLE THE POETS AND LITERARY CIRCLES — MEDIAEVAL ART THE MANNERISTS — JUAN DE LAS ROELAS FRANCISCO DE HERRERA FRANCISCO PACHECO VENETIAN PAINTING — THE TOLEDAN SCHOOL. DIEGO DE SILVA VELAZQUEZ. A HUNDRED years ago the name of Velazquez was still rarely mentioned this side of the Pyrenees, and least of all in Germany. The muster roll of 'the great painters seemed long closed, and no one suspected that in the Far West, in the palaces of Madrid and Buen Retiro, lay concealed the credentials of an artist who possessed full claims to rank with the foremost of the great masters. He had doubtless passed, from Palomino, the “ Spanish Vasari,” into the dictionaries of painters, but it was reserved for a German painter to give him his proper place in the general history of modern painting. Raphael Mengs — whose writings con- tain critical estimates of the classical masters, and who dreamt of a new dawn of Art by a fusion of their diverse qualities, combined with a study of the antique, but who himself remained one of the last and feeblest of the Eclectics — during his survey of the royal pictorial treasures in 1761, found himself, not without emotion, for he had at least the eye of a painter, in the presence of one who, of all he had hitherto met, least resembled himself. In what this Saxon called the “ natural style ” he discovered in Velazquez a superior even to those whom — like Titian, Rembrandt, and Gerhard Dow — he had hitherto regarded as the leaders in that field. "The best models of the natural style,” he wrote in 1776 to Antonio Ponz, the cicerone of Spanish Art, “ are the works of Diego Velazquez, in their knowledge of light and shade, in the play of aerial effect, which are the most important features of this style, because they give a reflection of the truth.” What Mengs here states in his own way had already been the impres- sion of contemporaries. When, in the jubilee year, Philip IV.’s Court painter exhibited the portrait of his slave Juan Pareja, in the Pantheon at Rome, the painters, according to the report of the German, Andreas Schmidt, then present, declared that all else, whether old or new, was painting; this picture alone was truth. And this statement doubtless I 2 Velazquez. implied more in 1650 than at any time before or since. Moreover, it expresses the ideal of the master himself, and probably in his own words. We hear artists making the same remark to-day when contemplating the portrait of the then reigning Innocent X., which Velazquez left behind in the “ Capital of Art,” as he had his own portrait twenty years previously. From the impression made on me by this remarkable work, which I first saw in the Doria Gallery in 1867, dates my own interest in Velazquez, as well as the first impulse to the journeys and researches which have resulted in the present work. Velazquez is one of those individualities that brook no comparison with any others. All attempts to sum up such persons in a single sentence end only in platitudes or hyperbole. The Court painter of Charles III. regarded him as the first of naturalists. “ Were painting but a second birth of Creation,” says Charles Blanc, “ then Velazquez would unques- tionably be the greatest of painters.” To Waagen, who became acquainted with his works late in life, he appeared to represent the realism of the Spanish school in all its one-sidedness, but also in its greatest perfection. Still this critic cannot refrain from adding : “ Nay, so far as it is a question of reproducing men as they are, with the utmost vividness of conception, with the greatest truth to form and colour, with the rarest mastery of an absolutely free and broad treatment, I do not hesitate to pronounce him the greatest painter that has ever lived.” Beule called him the first of colourists, and Thore the painter of painters (Ic peintre le plus pcintre qui fut jamais'). Piety and mysticism have been specified as the peculiar and dominant characteristics of Spanish Art, and this may be true of its subject-matter as well as of the strict religiosity of its exponents. But who will maintain that Spain can rival Italy in religious painting? Where are her Giottos, her Fiesoles and Peruginos ? We seek in vain for a monument on a level with the Sixtine Madonna and the Disputa, the Adoration of the Lamb in Ghent or Titian’s Asunta, just as we seek in vain for a Spanish Dante or Milton. Spain has her solitary Murillo, whose mental calibre is comparable to that of devotional painters such as Guido, Carlo Dolce, and Sassoferrato ; but what places him far before these is the happy association of homely national types, local colouring and play of light in the traditional material, his naturalism, and genial childlike character. What fascinates strangers in the Spanish religious paintings is, not so much their wealth of feeling and depth of symbolism as a certain touch of earnestness, simplicity, and downright honesty. These artists were far from making religious subjects a pretext for introducing charming motives of a Introduction. 3 different order ; but, with mediaeval artlessness, they never hesitated to transfer such subjects to a Spanish environment. Hence the frequently whimsical character of these Spanish ecclesiastical paintings, which — although seldom repulsive, and mostly even attractive through their genuine qualities — has occasionally led to an exaggerated view of their artistic worth. In the fifteenth century we find the retablo painters of the provincial schools, under the influence of the Flemings, already betraying similar tendencies, even within the narrow bounds of “ Gothic ” Art. But the intruding Italian spirit soon arrested these beginnings of a genuine national school. For fully a century the Spaniards devoted themselves to idealism, with the result that with much pains they produced nothing but indifferent works. Then followed the reaction to the opposite system, but now with very different artistic powers. The invariable effect of this system was to give scope to individuality, pointing, as it did, to Nature as the true source of inspiration, and placing talent on an independent footing. But these very Spanish masters, of a pure and even rugged type, who, with one exception never travelled abroad, nevertheless made the round of the world, and created the notion of what is called the Spanish school. They belong to the epoch of Philip IV., as pictured to us in the words of Leopold Ranke : “ His epoch, so saddened by political failures and financial maladministration, has otherwise a far more Spanish complexion than earlier times.” Of this group Velazquez was the most consistent in principle ; he possessed the greatest technical skill, and the truest painter’s eye. Hence, from the material standpoint, he may be unreservedly accepted as not only the one almost purely secular Spanish painter, but the most Spanish of Spanish painters. For over a century the Spaniards possessed a state, in the modern sense of the term, but a state the machinery of which was still clogged by the per- sistence of many elements of mediaeval culture. From the friction of the jejune modern classically trained intellect with this world of dreams there arose, if not the only good work, assuredly the most incomparable and entertaining of Spanish, if not of all modern imaginative literature. In those days no anti-chamber lacked its Don Oaixote-, this book circulated as an innovation amongst the young generation, founders cf the “ School of Seville.” Miguel Cervantes, who, like Leonardo, called experience the mother of all science, and who declared history to be holy, “ because it is true, and where is truth there is God,” 1 possessed in his richly endowed mind a large share of commonplace rationalism, what Schlegel called “ the prosaic corner in his poetic soul.” But such a prosaic corner everywhere 1 Don Quixote , i. 21 ; li. 3. 4 V ELAZQUEZ. crops up in Spanish poetry and culture. By the side of the pale gaunt steed of romanticism trots the ass of practical popular wisdom. The romances of vagabond life ( gusto picaresco ) are, even in their trivial details, no exaggerated fore-runners of the realistic novel created by the present school of South French writers. Dramatists, such as Lope, glorified the old ideas of honour, love, and loyalty in subtle entanglements and in sparkling language. But Calderon, the poet of the age and of the Court — “ a poet if a poet ever was ” — embodies not only the spirit of his epoch, but also a picture of contemporary manners and dress, of scenes in the streets, in parks, church, and palace — a picture than which no better can be gleaned from chronicles and memoirs. Whence comes this feature of the Spanish character ? Is it an heirloom of their Iberian forefathers, a product of soil and climate ? or is it to be sought in that interchange of qualities that may have been brought about during their protracted struggles with their Eastern oppressors ? “ The Arab,” says Dozy, “ has little fancy and no invention, but a preference for the real and positive. The Arabian poets describe what they see and experi- ence, but they invent nothing .” 1 In the same way Cervantes calls the knight-errant poetry lying books (libros mentirosos). Had their religion allowed the Arabs to have painters they would probably have painted portraits, hunts, festive sports, and pictures of manners, such as we see in the Hall of Justice in the Alhambra — painted, however, as I believe, by Spaniards. The same trait is still characteristic of modern Spanish painting, which has been freely developed without any special connection with the past. In any case this feature provided itself at the right moment with an eye as an organ exceptionally endowed for photographing visible phenomena. “ With Velazquez we seem to observe nature as in a camera obscura." By his official position completely restricted in the choice of his subjects he seems, in his inmost soul, interested only in his optic pictorial problems. He was often attracted by what was difficult to grasp and reproduce, but what at the same time was of daily occurrence, familiar as the all-diffused sunlight itself. He thus imposed tasks upon himself which have not again been attacked till quite recent times. Yet, for all that, few others have given less rein to the play of fancy, or turned to such little account the opportunities of immortalizing beauty; few also have shown less sympathy with the yearning of human nature for that unreal which consoles us for the realities of life. But his portraits, landscapes, hunting scenes, all that he ever did, may 1 Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne , i., 13. Introduction. 5 be taken as standards wherewith to measure the depth of conventional dross in others. The medium through which he viewed Nature absorbed, to use a physical illustration, less colour elements than that of other artists. As by the side of the electric light otherwise white flames seem murky, so in the presence of his works those even of naturalists show to disadvantage. Compared with Velazquez, Titian’s colouring seems conventional, Rembrandt phantastic, and Rubens infected with a dash of unnatural mannerism. If he infuses less into his subjects than any others he certainly extracts more from them. No one has taken more to heart Diirer’s maxim that "truly Art lies hid in Nature ; he has her that can draw her out.” Impressed by the Spanish Gallery in the Louvre, a German wrote : “ If he lacked wings to soar above the welkin, and to body forth the superhuman expression of those realms, he was perhaps the greatest of all whose feet ever trod the ground. His works were elevated by expression and character, and often acquired a highly poetical colour, even when he himself meant only to be true and loyal to Nature. Velazquez imparted to the most ordinary por- trait more poetry and loftiness than many other historical painters to their allegorical compositions.” Whatever he saw he transferred to the canvas by methods of a constantly varying and even impromptu character, which are often a puzzle to painters. Yet these methods were often extremely simple, such as those by which Rembrandt produced those inimitable effects in his etchings. It has been remarked that "the mental intention of the artist is intimately bound up with the technical power of representation.” But it is no less true that genius, like Nature herself, never yet lacked the means of realizing what it saw and wished to realize. The Italian painting of the fourteenth century would have scarcely been differently constituted even had the new oil technique been already known, and the great Fleming himself would surely have still been possible, had he to put up with any other medium. Velazquez impresses the great majority of those who handle the brush, especially by the outward display of those expedients, as the most ingenious of all artists, that is, who can make the most out of the slenderest resources, and we often forget that for him this is merely a means to the end. Hence the never-failing attraction possessed by Velazquez’ works. Of no other can we view so many together without a sense of weariness. Not a few he has executed, each of which is quite sui generis, and such that, on the variations of the theme in other hands, a whole series of subjects might be founded. The lifelike charm that they exercise lies both in their outward and 1 E. C. (Koloff) im Kunstblatt, 1839, P- 1 S 7 - 6 Velazquez. inward aspects, in the glow of the complexion and the revelation of the will, in the breathing, throbbing glance and the depth of character. " His principal works,” aptly remarks Sir J. C. Robinson, “ . . . like the im- mortal creations of Shakespeare, are replete with such intense and vivid realism, that, as long as the world endures and they remain in. evidence, they will probably commend themselves to the observer in as complete earnest as at the first moment of their production. The pictures of Velazquez have this in common with photographs, that they impress the mind with such a powerful sense of actuality, as almost to suggest to the beholder in their after remembrance the having assisted at the visible passages of human action represented.” 1 Hence the life-work of Velazquez readily lends itself to monographic treatment ; one might even say that each separate work invites such treat- ment. Others have doubtless handled far more weighty and edifying themes ; others have possessed a higher measure of the creative faculty ; others have had at their command more penetrating tones and ravishing harmonies. Compared with the colourists of the Venetian and Netherlandish schools, Velazquez appears even prosaic and jejune ; nay, we scarcely know one with fewer attractions for the uninitiated. But one quality he possessed in a pre-eminent degree. In each indi- vidual work he is new and special, both as regards invention and technique. For the historical student the productions of this “ Home Secretary of Nature,” as Ch. Blanc calls him, are contemporary records ; to the philosopher they exhibit, as in a mirror, his chief theme, man ; for the practical artist they are stimulating, while their details satisfy anatomist, sportsman, and cobbler alike. His works possess in a high degree that quality of originality which Palomino calls the "canonization” of a work of Art. In his great historical paintings no connection can be detected with earlier models, and they have, in their turn, remained inimitable. But what eminently dis- tinguishes him from all other original painters is his artlessness and uncoloured truth to Nature. His two picturesque masterpieces are memories of observed situations of the most trivial and limited nature. For other- wise the impression of originality is based on an overwhelming subjectivity stamped upon every feature of the composition. The interest and enthusiasm with which we contemplate Art works of the past would appear to depend not alone on a 3’earning after historic knowledge, or on the practical utility of such studies ; it must even be somewhat independent of our attitude in the idle discussion on the superiority ' Memoranda on Fifty Pictures (London : 1868), p. 43. The Galleries. 7 of old and modern Art. Painters declare that, as regards technique they have nothing more to learn from the old masters. In any case their Art differs in this respect from the mechanical Arts, for instance. The charm of the old monuments lies in the here embodied special manifestations of spiritual and physical humanity — which being conditioned by certain relations of time, culture, and race — can no more recur than can those relations themselves. Hence what we seek and what rivets our atten- tion is a complete representation of our common nature, which in each successive epoch is exhibited only in a fragmentary way. Herein for us lies the value and the indispensable character of Greek plastic Art. Hence the tendency of our times towards mediaeval Christian Art, in which is embodied a peculiar and irrecoverable phase of human sentiment. The times of Cervantes and Murillo, when in Spain special forms were created for special material conditions and ways of thought, may also be taken as a special, if somewhat limited, phase of humanity, entitled to a niche in its pantheon, and not merely to a page in the records of historical finds. The Galleries. Velazquez and his admirers have had the rare good fortune that the more important half of his works have never been scattered, but still remain where they were originally produced. They have migrated only from the palaces to the Prado Museum. Thanks to the slight deterioration of the colours, the dry atmosphere of Madrid and long exemption from the meddling of curators of the old type, they are also in a state of preservation that leaves nothing to be desired. We are thus enabled to follow, step by step, an artistic career of forty years, where land and people — here more characteristic and persistent than in northern regions — serve as commentaries to the author’s text. For life alone can remove the dust and stiffness imparted by time to works of Art. Contemporary records, chronicles, and literature enable us also to conjure up the epoch and very surroundings of this active career in all its lifelike details of characters and outward circumstances. In the writings, despatches, and poetry of the times, how often do we meet descriptions, which seem stereotyped on the paintings of Velazquez ! In the broad, solitary, treeless valleys of the Castilian table-lands how often do we recognize those landscapes, with their clear, deep azure atmo- spheric tones, in which he places his glowing equestrian portraits ; or in the narrow streets of his towns some peasant or mendicant, who seems to have stepped out of one of Velazquez’ frames ! The Museum itselt Velazquez. forms a chapter in this commentary. Here we behold the very society, the hills, the parks, in which he moved, the productions of the Italian brush that he admired and studied, and some of which he had himself brought with him from Italy to enrich these collections. Only a few important works have perished in the conflagrations of churches and palaces. But during the stormy times at the beginning of this century many, apparently all in private collections, found their way to foreign lands. For a complete survey of his life-work a knowledge is needed of this dispersed second half of his productions. Let no one flatter himself that he knows this painter, unless he is familiar with the works at present in England. Although the Madrid Museum must always remain unrivalled as possessing all the five great historical and equestrian subjects, it still lacks many remarkable pieces, and even whole classes of representations. Amongst these are the common everyday scenes of his Andalusian period, such as the Water-Carrier, owned by the Duke of Wellington ; the types of Church dignitaries, such as the Pope in the Doria Palace, and the Cardinal now in Frankfort ; and, with one exception, the great portraits of Spanish ladies, and his solitary Venus. The Belvedere Gallery surpasses Madrid in delightful pictures of children endowed with all the softness of tender years, and radiant in their bright adornments. Lastly, to England have gone the scenes of the hunt and riding-school, and, last, not least, the few genuine original sketches. The best specimens of Velazquez in foreign lands are not to be sought in the great collections. In no other case do the much administered public museums show to greater disadvantage compared with the results of private enterprise. The London National Gallery contains only the ruined Boar-hunt, two ordinary portraits of Philip IV., and the Shepherds, which as a production of his youth and imitation doubtless possesses some biographical value, but which can scarcely pretend to give an adequate idea of the master’s Art. For some little time, however, it has here been more worthily represented by the gift of the Christ at the Pillar. Although nearly all portable works of Velazquez, as well as of Murillo and Zurbaran, have during the present century appeared on the market, and mostly in London ; although English amateurs had already in the previous century acquired a taste for Spanish Art ; although painters like Wilkie and Burnet had ob- served the kindred spirit animating Velazquez and the British portraitists ; and although English writers had first proclaimed the excellence of these Spanish masters, still none of their best works seemed destined to enrich the London National Gallery. When we picture to ourselves a general exhibition of the Velazquez scattered over England, such as that Biographical Data. 9 of Manchester, 1 we see how easily London might have acquired a Spanish collection worthy to compare with that of Madrid itself. Nor have things been better managed on the Continent. The Louvre has a replica, and a very indifferent one, of the Royal Sportsman, an easel painting, and a small sketch; the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, besides a replica of the Pope’s Head, nothing but doubtful pieces ; the Dresden Gallery three from Modena; even the Munich Pinakothek scarcely any- thing except one portrait of Olivares from the Castle of Schleissheim. Lately the Berlin Museum has acquired two notable portraits of ladies. Drawings are very rare, a few only having reached the Madrid National Library from Valentine Carderera’s estate ; some of a very remarkable character are also in the collection bequeathed by Cean Bermudez to the Instituto Asturiano of his native town, Gijon. Biographical Data. Velazquez’ name first appears in print in Vincenzo Carducho’s Didlogos de la Pintura (1633), where mention is made of the paintings in the royal palace of Madrid. But the earliest trustworthy accounts of his life occur in his father-in-law’s (Pacheco) Arte de la Pintura (Seville: 1649). The description here given of his first Italian journey would appear to be derived from letters written at the time. Sixty-four years after his death appeared Palomino’s detailed biography in the Museo Pictorico (1724). But this biographer of the painters was already at work in Madrid so early as 1678, and had been Court painter since 1688. In the palaces he saw everything left behind by Velazquez ; he also availed himself of the public records as well as the memoranda of artists who, like Juan de Alfaro, had associated with him. Palomino could still draw from the copious stream of unbroken tradition, and in point of fact subsequent writers have done little beyond making a few corrections and additions to his memoir. The Museo was the only source of all our information regarding Velazquez and his associates outside Spain down to the present century. The account of Velazquez’ life contained in it was translated into English in 1739; into French in 1749; and into German (Dresden) in 1781. D’Argenville’s Biography (1745) is a mere summary of this account. Antonio Ponz introduced a few descriptions of paintings into his Art Journey (Madrid : 1 77 —) e t se( l- Cean Bermudez utilized for his Diccionario the memoranda of contemporaries, such as those of the painter Lazaro Diaz del Valle 1 “ Aucun inusee excepte le musee de Madrid, n'offre une aussi splendide collection de leurs tableaux (Velazquez et Murillo).'’ — W. Burger, Tresors d Art en Angleterre (Brussels: i860). IO Velazquez. (1659), copies of which are still extant in private collections. The Discourses of Joseph Martinez, another contemporary colleague, published in 1866 by Valentine Carderera, also contains a section bearing on this subject. But not till the present century was it possible for the name of Velazquez to take a prominent and clearly defined position in the com- monwealth of Art. Two events contributed to this result : One was King Ferdinand VII. ’s decision (1819) to bring together in one museum the paintings in the royal palaces of Madrid and San Ildefonso, where they had been only casually accessible to a few privileged persons ; the other was the dispersion of a part of Velazquez’ works throughout France and England after the wars of the empire. Even what had already found its way abroad now first attracted attention. Many paintings in France and Italy, in the Austrian imperial palaces, in the Dresden Gallery, and elsewhere, had hitherto been partly inaccessible, or else passed under false names, especially that of Rubens. The portrait of the Pope in the Pamfili Palace had alone retained its right name. Since then others, besides specialists, have become acquainted with Velazquez. In the Paris and London Art circles he has become a well-known and familiar name, quite as attractive to Art students as to connoisseurs, dealers, and collectors. The lead was taken by England, thanks to the general love of travel and to a preference for the Spanish school which even in the last century was already represented in private collections. The first readable bio- graphy we owe to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, a Scottish baronet, who was born in 1818 and died in 1878. It first appeared in the Annals of the Artists of Spain (London : 1848), and afterwards in separate editions. This writer was a gentleman of the grand style, not only because he did not make a trade of his books, but also because in their company we always seem to be moving in the best society. He doubt- less appeals to the somewhat spoiled taste of the British public, but he always quotes with the conscientiousness of a well-trained historian. In a small space he gives us the most out-of-the-way, but always interest- ing and curious, details, such as could be brought together only by such a bibliophilist, whose Spanish library was, and still is, without a rival in Europe — an olla podruia, as Ford calls it, “ stuffed with savouries, not forgetting the national garlic.” Yet, although a skilful draughtsman, Sir William was still far more of a historian, a heraldic writer and man of letters, than a connoisseur. He lingers rather over graphic descriptions of grand State ceremonials and festivities than on artistic processes, such Biographical Data. i i as Prosper Merimee missed in his numerous notices. 1 These Annals, composed while still quite a young man, are, after all, nothing more than an elegant re-hash of those of Palomino and Bermudez, served up with English sauce, substantially the same as Fiorillo brought out in Gottingen (1806), only enlivened by the lights and shadows of his impressions of travel, and by the broad perspectives of history, in which he was well versed. A better connoisseur than Sir William, although now regarded as somewhat optimistic, was Richard Ford (1796), the genial companion of all travellers in Spain. His Handbook of Spain, first issued in 1845, is altogether incomparable of its kind, the work of one deeply read in ancient and modern authors, seasoned with humour, sarcasm, sympathy based on a knowledge of the people, saturated with the very atmosphere of the land. His article on Velazquez in the Penny Cyclopaedia is also the best in the English language. Stirling-Maxwell's biography was also translated into German (Berlin : 1856), and by G. Brunet into French, with a Catalogue Raisonne by W. Burger (pseudonym of T. Thore), 1865. But while that work is based mainly on book knowledge, the Apercus of Theodore Thore are, on the contrary, altogether inspired by a study of the originals themselves. This unerring- critic of old and modern painters, who mostly hits the right nail on the head, was even a recognized innovator in the method of estimating paintings ; and the fact that he himself took a passionate part in the struggles of modern Art merely adds animation to his descriptions. He was one of those born painters, who work only with the pen, and his causual aphorisms are more trustworthy than many learned works. His “ winged words ” have the force of irresistible conviction, because they express first impressions alone, impressions which are too often counterfeited by the cacoethes scribcndi of the monographist. In similar apposite notices French literature is by no means poor, though here it will suffice to mention Charles Blanc and Theophile Gautier. The valuable articles contributed to the Gazette des Beaux-arts by Paul Lefort, the best French critic of the Spanish school, have now been brought together in an illustrated volume. Since the year i860 the fellow-countrymen of the now highly esteemed painter have also on their part taken the preliminary steps for a complete biography, based on the original materials stowed away in the national archives. Some twenty years ago monographs were prepared, and in 1870 and 1874 partly promised, by three collectors of documents favourably placed 1 Revile des Deux Mondes, 1848, xxiv., p. 639 et scq. I 2 Velazquez. for undertaking such works. Still these researches have not yielded the results that might have been expected. But few references to special paintings have come to light, and so far not a single letter of the painter himself. Yet he is known to have corresponded with Rubens and with the Murcian painter, Don Nicolas de Villacis. An important find would certainly be the recently discovered memoir on the paintings in the Escorial, but unfortunately its authenticity is more than doubtful. The distinguished bibliophilist, Don Manuel Zarco del \ alle, the king s librarian, has for the first time published in the Documentos incditos a number of the more important records in the palace archives. He at the same time promised a work which was to contain some extremely remark- able documents, utilizing for the purpose a number of very rare printed books of the seventeenth century, as well as information regarding unknown paintings from notices by contemporaries. 1 For these studies the greatest services have been rendered by Don Gregorio Cruzada Villaamil (born 1832, died 1885), editor of El Arte en Espana (1862-70) — the only Art journal in Spain, now defunct through want of support — and author of the memoir on Rubens as a Spanish Diplomatist (Madrid: 1876). He has republished the extremely rare books of Carducho and Pacheco, which are so important for the study of the Spanish painting of this period ; and to him we owe the publication (1874) of the documents on Velazquez' patent of nobility from the archives of the Order in Ucles. Villaamil had begun to issue a life of the painter, based on original documents, of which nine sheets lie before me, when this energetic man, who also took an active part in politics, was torn from his friends by a sudden and premature death. The first part of the copious Catalogue of the Prado Museum, a model of its kind, by Don Pedro de Madrazo y Kuntz (Madrid : 1872), contains, besides a biographical sketch enriched with some fresh data from the palace archives, careful descriptions of the paintings specially useful for the costumes, and an account of their vicissitudes in the royal palaces. Fcr this volume, which has been followed oy no others, Don Pedro received a thousand gold pieces from Isabella II. Numerous articles by this fruitful writer in his Gems of Painting, in the Illustrated Journal, and in the Paris review L'Art, are all preparatory to a comprehensive work which may now be expected, and for which he is undoubtedly in a highly favourable position. The advocate and bibliophilist, Don Francisco Asensio, of Seville, has communicated, in a memoir on Pacheco, the original entries in the Church 1 Documentos incditos para la Historia de Espana, lv., 1870, p. 398. Biographical Data. i3 registers ; he has also lately issued a phototype of Pacheco’s portrait series — again discovered and acquired by himself — the most fruitful source for a knowledge of contemporary society in Seville. At the time of my visit I was able to consult a copy of the text preserved in the library of the Historical Academy. Recently a work has been devoted to Velazquez and Murillo, such as one would like to have on many other artists. I refer to the remarkable book of Charles B. Curtis of New York, 1 with which America enters the arena of Art History. This work, evidently a labour of love and the result of some twenty years’ industry, aims at a classified description of everything that at least in print has borne the name of Velazquez, together with the history of the paintings, their prices, and an inventory of all the reproductions, of which Curtis himself apparently possesses the most complete collection. The author has designedly refrained from critical estimates, which would have doubtless spared his readers much superfluous inquiry, but which would have also more than doubled his own task, while bringing the book very near to the ideal which seems to hover before the eyes of modern Art students. A specially convenient feature is the form which the book takes of a catalogue, whereas with such materials, ample enough no doubt for a Catalogue Raisonne , others might have believed themselves competent to write a history. At the same time the few doubts and conjectures scattered here and there show plainly enough that he by no means lacks critical acumen. Meanwhile his book relieves the present work from the necessity of supplying a detailed inventory of Velazquez’ productions. Richard Ford’s remark, in 1848, that the Germans had not yet turned their usual accurate and critical industry in the direction of Spanish painting, contains a suggestion that has not yet been acted upon. Two journeys of Passavant and Waagen resulted in a small treatise by the former and a few articles by the latter, both with some reference to Velazquez, but that is all. During his first journey to Spain (1872), undertaken without any definite or literary purpose, the present writer felt himself especially attracted towards this master. He has often since returned to the Peninsula, but mostly with a view to other branches of the local Art world, which perhaps possessed to a greater degree the charm and advantage of an unexplored field. At times it occurred to him that a work on Velazquez might be more suited to Spanish readers, if not to 1 Velazquez and Murillo; a Descriptive and Historical Catalogue. By Ch. B. Curtis (London : 1883). ‘4 Velazquez. a Spanish pen. But after such intervals of hesitation he was still drawn towards this favourite object ; and thus, at last, was almost reluctantly produced the present work. In our days he alone has a right to attempt the biography of a painter who, by unwearied study of the originals, has laid a sure foundation for their appreciation. The author has endeavoured repeatedly to examine all the works known to him, including those scattered over Italy, Russia, and especially England. Those who have made similar researches will best judge of the time and labour needed merely to train the eye, or to form an estimate of works often of no importance in them- selves, or else in a few lines to justify the rejection of some doubtful piece. Although the study of archives and the like are for us mere intervals of repose in the midst of our proper labours spent on the works them- selves, on the laws and technique of the Art, yet in the present case these intervals have at times been greatly protracted. Thus, to mention only one point, autographic copies had to be made of the inventories of the royal palaces, from which conclusions may be formed regarding the industry displayed by Velazquez in the arrangement of collections. The Spanish correspondence in the archives of Venice, Naples, Florence, Modena, and elsewhere in Italy, contain, besides some letters referring to the master, many data which often throw a surprising light on persons and circumstances mentioned in his biography. The life of an artist, in whom his epoch was so largely mirrored, would seem like a mere frag- ment of some lost manuscript, unless correct bearings be taken of that epoch. But such bearings must be sought not in historical works, but in con- temporary diaries, despatches, and comedies, at least if something better is to be written than mere threadbare introductions to Art History. His travels in Spain itself gave him an opportunity to learn something of the land and the people, and this becomes in its turn indispensable to a full understanding of his productions. Velazquez should there be studied in the provinces as well as in the capital, although outside Madrid scarcely any of his works can now be seen. If truth be the first virtue of a work of the imitative Arts, the special enjoyment of which consists after all in recognition, how are we to form a judgment without knowing what the artist had before his eyes ? The dons in their ruffs, and the dames in their farthingales, are doubtless no longer met on the banks of the Manzanares ; but their kith and kin have undergone little change. VVe often hear things called unnatural, only because we have never seen them, and so we attribute to the artist what lies in his subject. We trace the descent of motives, as if they were the traditional secrets of a guild, Biographical Data. i5 whereas they were all the time patent to everybody. We call certain conceptions stiff or crude, affected or ideal, which are yet downright honest copies of the reality. The native gesture-speech of the southerners to us seems mere pantomimic and mannered action, only because it is agitated as with the throb of life. Thus, by a recent bungler our master’s land- scapes are likened to hanging draperies, although they are recalled at every step by all travellers in the Castilian highlands. A word on the disposition and arrangement of the contents. The history of an artist is, above all, the history of his works ; and these may with the greatest ease be determined, even where outward evidence fails us. In the present case we are not so fortunate as with Rembrandt or Ribera, for instance, but also not so helpless as with Murillo. The main changes in his pictorial Art are firmly established. But to pretend to give year and month for every painting could lead only to self-deception. How seldom — and even then one might say only by chance — are our deductions confirmed by subsequent extrinsic evidence ! The determination of the so-called “ development ” directs the attention too forcibly to certain changes of style depending on the periods of life, which in all cases are of a more or less typically similar character, but which have little to do with the inner essence of the artist’s genius. Our woodcuts, executed by R. Brend’amour, are based, apart from drawings by artists, mostly on J. Laurent’s photographs and Braun’s masterpieces ; supplemented, where these failed, by lithographed copies, old copper-plates and etchings. These cuts are intended merely as illustrations, affording such a measure of help as the reader’s imagination could not very well dispense with. It was not my intention to produce a sumptuous volume after present models, even were the means available. The book is the production of a writer who wants readers, not a text for a volume of pictures, where the author points, like a showman in the fair, to his exhibition. A work such as this should stand on its own merits. SEVILLE. Naturae gaudentis et lascivientis opus. Ludovicus Nonnius. M ANKIND generally takes more or less interest in the outward circumstances and surroundings of persons who have left a deep impression behind them, either as public benefactors, or because of their great achievements or simply as objects of affection. We are curious about their birthplaces and early associations, the mountain air that they have breathed, the graves where they have found rest ; we seek informa- tion regarding their forefathers, their teachers, and companions in life ; and biographies now usually take account of this natural tendency, especially in the case of men, whose activity has been displayed in the realm of fancy. The present section will accordingly be devoted to the city of Seville and its society, to the changes of taste between the fifteenth and seven- teenth centuries, and to the leading artists who flourished about the beginning of the latter. Were all this as well known as, for instance, in the case of Florence, such a section might well have been omitted. But in the life-history of our painter a number of persons and things will have to be mentioned, suggesting to few readers any clear associations, and it would be scarcely courteous to expect them to provide themselves with a small library in order to complete the picture. A good book should contain nothing that is not perfectly clear and intelligible from the context itself. What Seville was in former times we do not yet need to discover in musty records, or to conjecture from ruined monuments. There still survive Jaber’s famous minaret, and the orange court of the mosque, Seville. 17 with the puerta del perdon ; Don Pedro’s alcazar and garden still serving as a royal residence ; lastly, the stupendous cathedral, which according to the local tradition the canons resolved during a vacancy in the see to erect somewhat in the spirit of the builders of the tower of Babel. “ Let us build such a huge church that posterity shall look upon us as fools,” is anyhow a happy Andalusian invention, expressed with thorough Spanish humour. It is a structure, so to say, without founder or architect, a work of many generations of canons and deans and archbishops, aided by a colony of foreign and native artists. These monuments show that long before Columbus Seville was the fairest and most flourishing town in the kingdom ; in the language of Alarcon, “ the paragon of the times and envy of cities.” Navagero thought it more like those of Italy than any other place in the State, and it is described by the Florentine Serrano as the metropolis of the best province, and through its commerce generally regarded as the richest city in Spain (February 7, 1637). Seville had from of old prided herself on her wealth and devotion, on the elegance of her dwellings and the munificence of her benevolent institutions, on the beauty of her women and the bravery of her nobles. She had not always been a city of Sybarites, but had long fostered the spirit of the hardy conquerors from the north, as breathed in the sepul- chral effigies of the Riveras and Ponce de Leon in the University. Here is the recumbent statue of the founder, Per Afan de Rivera, who died in 1423, in the 105th year of his age; and who, in the words of the inscription, “consumed his life in the service of God, in the wars against the Moors, and in the service of five monarchs;” here also that of his son, Diego Gomez, “ who spent his whole life in the Moorish wars.” Seville had become a universal emporium. “It would have been as great a wonder,” says Alarcon, “ to meet a woman in Madrid that did not beg as a cavalier in Seville without a taste for trade.” In the early period ships of 400 or 500 tons ascended the Guadalquiver to discharge their cargoes at the Molo, the Torre de Oro. The tides mounted two miles above Seville, which exported oil, wine, oranges, and lemons to the north ; cloth of gold, stout sarsenets and velvets to Castile ; while thousands were still employed in the silk industry. Thus it came about that during the sixteenth century wealth accumu- lated with unheard-of rapidity, when the city became the great and exclusive outlet of trade with the New World, and the Silver Fleet first entered and cleared from this port. Here were painted the flags and banners which bore the arms of Spain over all the high seas of the 2 V ELAZQUEZ. globe. The colonial trade was regulated by the Casa de Contratacion, while the great merchants enjoyed a monopoly of the commerce of the seas. They controlled the markets of the old Mediterranean marts, and even those of the north, whose dealers brought their wares to this commercial metropolis of the Peninsula, at that time the centre of a world-wide empire. “Seville,” says Thomas Mercado, “is the capital of all the merchants in the world ; but recently Andalusia still lay on the confines of the globe, now she has become the central point.” Revenues and customs, value of land, the population, all increased ; and this universal commerce attracted quite new social groups. There were thus developed three sharply defined classes : (i) The natives descended from colonists and remnants of the old inhabitants, nobles and people ; sedate, brave, wealthy, living on their income or on their manual labour, never wandering abroad ; (2) the foreign traders, whose colonies — German, Flemish, French, Italian— are still recalled by the corresponding names of streets ; (3) the idlers, ne’er-do-weels, loafers and gamblers, who occasionally supplied trained bands for the wars against the Moriscos. With these elements the place was thronged to overflowing, and, “ as in China, the river itself became inhabited.” A gradual change ensued in the life and very aspect of the city. “The treasures of India,” remarks Zuniga, “attracted the trade of all nations, and with it a superabundance of all that the world most prizes in Art and Nature.” The reign of Philip III., coincident with the youth of Velazquez, is indicated by the chronicler as precisely the epoch when these changes set in. These were the times of great foundations, the high water mark of the spirit of enterprise. “Present^,” he tells us, “another world began to reveal itself in all departments.” These were the halcyon days of Seville. The State regarded Seville, where, in the words of Lope, “ twice a year the whole sustenance of Spain was landed,” as its universal help ( socorro ) and the common hope of its cities.” In the seventeenth century she supplied two-thirds of the currency for the Peninsula, and “the arrival of her galleons,” Zuniga tells us, “ is eagerly awaited by all the nations of Europe, which are now unfortunately more interested in them than are Spain and Seville, whither most comes and where least bides ; ” for the Spanish pistoles were met only abroad, and Spain herself was compared to the Arcadian ass, laden with gold but feeding on thistles. “ But,” says Pedro de Medina, “ this gold was the reward of the true faith, just as the Lord provided Solomon with gold and silver to build the Temple, that is, to gather the unbelievers into the bosom of the Church.” Seville. i9 In those days Church and 'Change were still close neighbours. Before the lonja was finished, the merchants used to assemble on the open space raised on steps before the cathedral. In the neighbouring streets auctions were held of silver ware, slaves, textile fabrics, cabinet-work, paintings, all as in the temple of the goddess Libitina, says Rodrigo Caro. Amongst the charitable institutions was the Hospital de la Sangre, the largest edifice in the city, founded by Dona Catalina de Rivera, and her son, Don Fadrique. This munificent house had spent altogether fifty thousand ducats on pious works. Seville was also a very catholic city. After the conquest her Moorish palaces had been converted into convents. “ Her greatest privilege is the devotion to the Queen of Angels, that belief in the Immaculate Conception, the dogmatic definition of which doctrine was here first advocated.” Seville possesses three colossal mediaeval paintings of the Madonna, which, by those whose faith is stronger than their archaeology, are still referred to the early Christian period, such therefore as no other Christian nation could boast of possessing. Yet, despite all this, and despite the Italian humanistic culture and poetry, at that time all the rage, Seville had remained, as she still remains, an essentially Oriental city. Her marble-paved courts, enlivened with fountains and flowering plants and laden with balsamic perfumes, seem like glimpses of the Arabian tales to the Northerner penetrating through the maze of narrow lanes to gaze at them through their open porches. In the popular melodies we still catch an echo of the plaintive Arab strains, nor has dancing yet disappeared from the churches. These dances feasts, masks, and processions have to strangers, at all times, seemed quite in the Eastern taste. In the apartments disposed round the courts stood cabinets with inlaid work of cedar, rosewood, ebony and ivory, with tortoise-shell and the precious metals, the finest Indian work from Goa ; Chinese enamelled vases with tropical birds of gorgeous plumage. Round the walls ran glazed tiles of a lustrous sheen, Flemish and Mexican tapestries and Cordovan leather hangings, while the floors were covered with Persian carpets. And now the museums are filled with these splendours which are daily growing rarer. Even the Christian edifices down to the sixteenth century were a mixture of mosque and church with Gothic portals and Moorish horse-shoe arches. But Fadrique Enriquez de Rivera’s Casa de Pilatos (1533) had asso- ciated the Moorish style with the most hallowed memories of Christendom. The Arab and Gothic architecture had been followed by the Italian Renaissance, which, however, had been unable to resist the spirit of the 20 Velazquez. place, and, for a time, ran riot in figurative and phantastic ornamentation. But all this yielded at last to Herrera's severe and even jejune cinquecento style in which was built the Temple of Mercury. Now everything was seen with the eyes of a Vignola, and the achievements of the last five hundred years were forgotten. Lope admired the cold Monument of the Holy Week (1559?) as the most noteworthy object in Seville. Still, even in the eyes of the new generation, the triumphs of earlier times shed a poetic glamour over the city, which Tirso calls the “ Memphis of Castile.” Nor had the spring of creative Art yet run dry, and the Andalusian capital had in her school of painting a precious gift still in store for Spain and humanity. Seville was also a city of pleasure. At that time her plains and river banks were laid out in gardens to a far greater extent than at present. Navagero found her still thinly peopled, with manv gardens within the walls ; this Venetian is enraptured with the pai ks and their quickset cedar, orange and myrtle hedges, and especially with the gardens of Eden of the Carthusians and St. Geronimo de Buena Vista. Yet they owed more to Nature than to Art, and stretched far into the country. From the western eminence, where begins the Ajarafe, a prospect was commanded, which, according to Rodrigo Caro, “ the brush of the most skilful painter would despair of reproducing.” For readers of Spanish comedies such places as the alameda of Hercules, or the margin of the stream planted with avenues by the son of Columbus, or the garden of the alcazar, become again animated with scenes of romantic adventure ; for, as Calderon tells us, Seville every night witnesses a hundred fresh intrigues. Here lived and was carried off by the devil Don Juan Tenorio, the “ Sevillan Scoffer.” Mateo Aleman calls it the Mother of Orphans and the Refuge of Sinners, while the green halls of the alcazar are elsewhere spoken of as the School of Love. It lay close to the Exchange, and “here the poetic descriptions of the gardens of Admetus and Alcinous no longer seemed to be fables; it is the women’s Exchange” (Tirso). To pass from devotion to mundane pleasures it sufficed to cross the bridge of boats leading to the Triana, which was the foreign quarter, laid out with beautiful gardens, pretty houses, and well-kept streets. Here, also, were the gambling-houses and the posadas (inns), where many distinguished guests were always to be met, because here people could associate freely, undis- turbed by the police or their neighbours. Here were the workshops of the potters and glassblowers, whose widely spread productions shed a lustre over many churches and palaces of Spain and Portugal. But besides the Queen of Heaven Moloch also claimed his victims. Literary Circles. 2 1 The contagion of the morbid aberrations of the religious sentiment was revealed by the occurrences of the year 1623, w T hen, in six months, ten thousand “ alumbrados ” were arrested on the charge of heresy. Scared by their very multitude the Inquisition “brought to the stake only seven of the ringleaders with one of the female enthusiasts, remitting for the rest the well-deserved capital sentence.” 1 The Poets and Literary Circles. Since the middle of the sixteenth century Italian culture had also permeated the educated classes of Seville. After the introduction of Latin studies by Antonio de Lebrija (1444 — 1522) the reading of old and recent Italian poets gave rise to a new world of sentiment and of literary forms within the rigid limits of Catholic tradition. With the neglect which every epoch shows for its immediate precursor, the earlier poetic creations were often overlooked, those even that alone have now any charm for us ; writers became absorbed in the memories of old Roman times, and poetic tears were shed over their disappearance. Rodrigo Caro of Utrera (1 573 — 1647), historian of Seville and of her celebrities, is the author of an ode on the ruins of Italica (Old Seville), which has been merely re-hashed or else plagiarized in some of its better strophes by Francisco de Rioja. A sonnet on the same theme was composed by Pedro de Quiros, while Juan de Arguijo bemoaned in song the ruins of Carthage and Troy, the death of Cicero, and the like. Hernando de Herrera, “ the divine,” most famous of Seville’s poets (1534-97), followed closely in the steps of Boscan and Garcilaso, the latter in his opinion the greatest of Spanish poets. According to Pacheco Herrera was the first to bring the language to its highest perfection. He considered the sonnet the most beautiful form both of Spanish and Italian poetry. And what titles ! Gigantomachia (by Herrera), Hercules, Psyche (twelve books in rimci sucltd), the Death of Orpheus in ottava rima (this by Malara), the same subject by Jauregui. In the Hercules, forty-eight cantos dedicated to Don Carlos, “ all the excellencies were collected which could be found in the Greek and Roman poets ” ! Pedro de Mexia (ob. 1555), at one time the most formidable swordsman in Salamanca, in later years, when broken down in health and suffering from long-standing headaches, composed one of those favourite miscellaneous collec- tions, mostly from old writers and in the manner of Macrobius, the Silva de varia leccion, that was translated into many languages, and was universally 1 Khevenhiller. Annates Ferd. X., 330. 22 Velazquez. read in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pacheco credits his verses with the qualities of wit (agudeza) and softness ( dulzura ). Of these writers, the most facetious was Balthasar del Alcazar (ob. 1606), the “ Martial of Seville.” Pacheco confesses that, like a Spanish Boswell, he took notes of all the poet’s sayings at their interviews. Amongst his compositions are some surprisingly bold bacchanalian songs. These erudite poets also turned their attention to the rising stage. The popular drama had been founded in Seville in 1544 by Lope de Rueda, a goldbeater of that place, and numerous religious and secular pieces had been composed in Latin and Spanish by Juan de Malara, " the Andalusian Menander” (ob. 1571), jointly with Francisco de Medina (ob. 1615), teacher of Latin and Greek. At the request of Philip II. he composed in Madrid (1566) some lines for Titian’s four furie. His comedies have been as completely forgotten as those of Gutierrez de Cetina (ob. 1560), written in prose and verse. More fortunate have been the dramas of Juan de la Cueva, some of which still hold their ground. Still, the pedantry of these writers was mainly confined to their mytho- logico-classical apparatus. They wrote canzoni to each other, in which they called themselves Damon and Vandalio ; but in their daily intercourse they betrayed none of the usual features of the humanists. They were selfmade men, moving in the full stream of those stirring times. They could fight, command on land and sea, pray, mortify the flesh, attend to public affairs. Yet they were no Philistines, and the sketch given of Herrera by Pacheco shows characteristics the very reverse of those common to Italian and German men of letters. “ He detested hypocrisy, and never accepted gifts from the great, even withdrawing from those who offered them ; he drank no wine, never indulged in gossip about the private life of others, and avoided the places where such took place. He disliked being called a poet, although he polished his compositions carefully, and consulted the friends before whom he read them.” He died before they were published, and they would have perished but for Pacheco’s affection. Balthasar del Alcazar served in Don Alvar de Bazan’s galleys, and Cetina was " just as much the quiver of Mars as the lyre of Apollo.’ “Never,” maintained Don Quixote, "has the lance blunted the pen, or the pen the lance.” A type of such men was Argote de Molina (1548-98), sprung from a iace of matcimoros who claimed descent from the conquerors of Cordova. After a distinguished military career of thirteen years, he opened in his house, Cal de Francos, an armoury and a museum, where were deposited the mediaeval Spanish literar}' treasures collected during his travels. Here he began a history of the Andalusian nobility, of which it was said that his Literary Circles. 23 assertion alone sufficed to attest a fact. The place was adorned with mytho- logical subjects and portraits of celebrities, for which he had secured the services of Sanchez Coello ; he was here honoured by a friendly visit from Philip II. Attention was also paid to national antiquities, family histories, collections of proverbs, even romances, glosses, and coplas. Heart-stirring songs Herrera first gives us in odes on the battle of Lepanto, on Don Sebastian’s disastrous expedition to Morocco, on Saint Ferdinand, and Medrano in his sonnet on the abdication of Charles V. But it is noteworthy that they here take their inspiration from the Psalms and the Prophets, as did also Luis de Leon, greatest of Spanish lyric poets. Indifference or aversion from ecclesiastical institutions was no charac- teristic feature of this, as it was of other humanistic circles. Archbishop de Castro (ob. 1600), although a prelate of austere character and strict religious principles, appears as the Maecenas of painters and poets ; the Latinist and antiquary Maestro Francisco de Medina was his secretary, Rodrigo Caro his intimate associate, and to Herrera he in vain offered honours and preferment. Welcome guests in the archiepiscopal palace were Guerrero the musician, the painter Pablo de Cespedes of Cordova, and the canon and licentiate Pacheco (the uncle), the best Latin poet in Seville. In this capital it is not surprising to find the pulpit orators most numerously represented amongst the theologians. Pacheco describes ten celebrities, amongst them a Christian Demosthenes, the Carmelite friar Juan de Espinosa, for forty years preacher to the cultured and ecclesiastical circles. The Augustinian prior Pedro de Valderrama, divided his fourteen working hours between study, preaching, administrative duties and building. Without resources he undertook and executed great monastic structures in Malaga, Granada, Seville. “ He wanted to build houses for God in order one day to receive one from Him.” Amongst so many ascetics and eloquent preachers we meet only one profound scholar, Benito Arias Montano (born 1498), “ master of Biblical erudition,” and thoroughly acquainted with eleven living and dead languages. To him Philip II. entrusted the famous Polyglot Bible (Biblia regia) to which, in Antwerp, he devoted eleven hours of daily work, and which was printed in Plantin’s office there. To Hernan Colon, son of Columbus, was due the patriotic idea of bequeathing in perpetuity to the city and cathedral chapter a library of twenty thousand volumes, which, although far from wealthy, he had collected during his travels throughout Europe. In such institutions discussion turned also on the Arts ; here all were 2 A Velazquez. lamiliar with the copperplates of the German and Italian schools. Francisco de Medina (ob. 1615), who had visited Italy, built himself in the suburb a sort of secular hermitage, where he collected, besides coins and paintings, printed books and other memorials of persons and contemporary times. Of him Pacheco the painter says: “He was not only a connoisseur, but was unrivalled in explaining and estimating Art works, in the choice of the best and most apt expressions in the Spanish language, being in this respect far superior to the most refined ( cultos ) speakers of his time.” Unlike the poets, the painters had fortunately no opportunity to depict battles of giants and romances of the Psyche type. But even more com- pletely than the poets they had renounced the hitherto current speech in favour of the foreign idiom. As Hernando de Hozes 1 held that, since the introduction of the Tuscan measures, everything hitherto composed in the old Spanish metrical system had so lost favour that few any longer thought it worth reading, so the leading artists and enlightened spirits now' talked of the local Gothic barbarism swept away by the first visitors to Rome. Even the Renaissance style of Diego de Siloe himself they accepted only as marking a period of transition. Of Jauregui’s translation of the Aminta Cervantes remarked that the reader was in a happy state of doubt as to which was the original and which the version. Tasso was also said to have kept Herrera’s poems under his pillow in order in them to admire the excel- lence of the Spanish language. So also Spanish painters worked with the Italians on the frescoes of Trinita dei Monti, the chancellery and the vestibulum of the Sixtine Chapel, nor can a trace of national Art be detected in the parts executed by them. Some, like Ruviales, settled permanently in Rome. The paintings of the leaders of the new style in Seville are full of borrowings and reminiscences from Italy. Herrera requires all expressions to be banished from lofty poetic effusions, which could impart a familiar, commonplace tone to the thought ; and in fact the Spanish of these poets became overladen with foreign idioms taken from the Latin and Italian languages. In the same way the rich local colouring of mediaeval Art vanishes from the pictorial productions of this period. We seek in vain for national types and characteristics, for locally distinctive motives and tones in works which might just as well have been painted in Utrecht or Florence. Still in the youth of VelazOjiiez these stars of the Italo-Spanish firma- ment were already on the wane. Quite a new, yet fundamentally an older, national taste had been aw’akened. In Calderon’s days sonnets already 1 Ticknor, History of Spanish LiteraUire, i., 496. Medieval Art. 25 passed for old-fashioned, and he could speak of the “ now slumbering memories of Boscan and Garcilaso.” 1 Medweval Art. On entering Andalusian territory the traveller’s first impression is that a change of scene has taken place. The prospect is more coloured, more animated, more tuneful, more cheerful, as if the Spanish frontier had only now been crossed. Nor could the North Spanish conquering races escape the irresistible influence of this southern nature. The re-conquest was closely followed by colonization, and in Spanish poblacion and pueblo are terms still used in the sense of township or commune. Still time was needed for the climate to tell on the character of the settlers, and still more for the painting introduced with the Church to be transformed to a perfect instrument for the expression of South Spanish thought. Doubtless the new masters had trans- planted their magnificent language to Andalusia, it was even said with the Asturian accent. But the crude artistic productions which they brought with them can scarcely claim consideration in this connection. We are seldom con- scious before Murillo’s epoch that features, figure and attitude were expressed in softer lines, that here warmer colours were diffused, or that eastern fancy had not, so to say, re-crossed the Straits with the banished Moors. The great architectural epoch of the Arab rulers reached its acme scarcely fifty years before their overthrow, and for the hundred and fifty years following Saint Ferdinand’s Conquest (1248), Christian Art lived in the shade of the purified mosque (finished 1171), and its minaret (1184-96). The Church occupied the large as well as the numerous small mosques, and continued to build in a Christian-Moorish ( mud e jar ) style. The Castilian kings in the same way took up their quarters in the sumptuous royal Moorish palace rebuilt still on the old lines. St. Ana, founded by Alfonso X., in the Triana suburb is the only important structure built in the northern style. A northern and Christian stamp was imparted to the mosques by the introduction of a few meagre Gothic elements. The extremely rude, half- barbaric level of the ornamental statuary is explained by the fact that in the Mohammedan traditions scarcely any room was left for the plastic Arts. Of the pictorial Art of this period a dim trace ma}' be found in the large wall paintings of the Madonna. Despite repainting, both the Virgen del Coral in St. Ildefonso’s, and the Rocamador in St. Lorenzo's, as 1 Que aunque hoy el dar un soneto No esta en uso, dispertando Las ya dormidas memorias. Del Boscan y Garcilaso. Calderon, Antes que todo es mi davia , i. 26 Velazquez. well as the Antigua of the cathedral, still betray their descent from the Gothic painting of the fourteenth century. These rare monuments have at the same time numerous analogies in the large statues, which for churches of this style were probably prepared by the general contractors themselves. In Seville there exist two statues of the Madonna, the Virgen de las Batallas in ivory, and Virgen de la Vega, which date from the time of the Conqueror, Ferdinand III. To the same style also belongs the reliquary of Alfonso X., the so-called Tablas Alfonsinas. For its first sepulchral monument of real artistic worth the cathedral is indebted to a northern sculptor ; it was erected to the memory of Archbishop Cervantes (died 1457), by Lorenzo Mercadante de Bretaha. Then followed in the year 1401 one of the boldest projects ever conceived by a mediaeval cathedral chapter — the erection of a new Gothic cathedral, of hitherto unrivalled magnitude (1403-1508). Its execution attracted a stream of masters from other provinces and from abroad, and henceforth the Moorish and French began to yield to Low German taste and influences. The painters on glass were exclusively from the Netherlands. The quaint and partly bizarre reliefs of the stalls (1475-78), are the work of Nufro Sanchez, a disciple of Mercadante. In the gigantic reredos, designed by Danchart in 1482 and completed in 1526, the Italian style already begins to obtrude itself towards the end, when the Florentine Domenico Alessandro took part in the work. The finest piece in the whole composition is the Pieta in the upper part, by Pedro Fernandez Aleman. According to the latest researches, Pedro Millan stands out as the most distinct personality. His chief work, no doubt, perished with the fall of the Cimborio in 15 11 ; but the Virgen del Pilar, is the noblest statue of the Madonna in Seville, while the Child is perhaps the truest of the many thousand bambinos in the Spanish churches. In a highly Gothic taste are the statues adorning the two west doorways of the cathedral. But he supplied also the models for the figures of Niculoso’s Robbia-portal in Santa Paula. Such a remarkable intermingling of the Art of three nations is characteristic, both for this cosmopolitan emporium and for Spanish Art generally. The predominance of Netherlandish elements is still more perceptible in painting. The Flemish oil process is known to have penetrated nowhere so early as into Spain ; nowhere else was it so rapidly assimilated to the national taste, and from no other quarter were so numerous orders received in Bruges and Antwerp. Medieval Art. 27 Thirteen years after the completion of the Ghent altar-piece Luis de Dalmau, earliest imitator of Jan van Eyck, executed the first Spanish oil-painting in Barcelona (1445). He was soon followed by Fernan Gallegos in Zamora and Salamanca, and somewhat later in Andalusia by Juan de Cordova, whose Annunciation in the former mosque of that city is decorated with eastern splendour. Isabella the Catholic entertained three Netherlandish painters at her Court, and the Crucifixion, a triptych by Dierick Bouts is still preserved in her royal chapel at Granada. Other Flemings also crossed the Pyrenees and settled in Spain. In their works we see the native manner of painting, combined with Spanish types and costumes, buildings and landscapes. In Palencia Juan de Flandes executed the high-altar tables; he had previously long been at work with the master Miguel in the service of Isabella. In Andalusia we meet, if not Juan himself, at all events a fellow-countryman of the school at Bruges, the painter of the remarkable eight pieces in the church of the Knights of St. John at Marchena. Still later Francisco de los Cobos, minister of Charles V., enriched the Church of St. Salvador at Ubeda, founded by himself, with six Flemish triptychs, which are now in the sacristy. The discovery in 1878 of a well attested reredos in the Church of St. Julian at Seville, by Juan Sanchez de Castro, makes it probable that the school of Seville itself had its beginning in a Flemish impulse. -With true foresight Stirling-Maxwell had already called this artist the Morning Star of the school. Recently some authorities have questioned the correct- ness of this term ; but a school means nothing more than an unbroken line of artists working under common influences in the same town or district, and by no means an unmixed pedigree. Before the discovery of Sanchez it would, at all events, have been rash to attempt to determine the stages of a Sevillan school of Art from scattered monuments, whose origin is partly doubtful, partly referable to remote lands. To judge from that triptych of the Madonna with Peter and Jerome, Sanchez must have derived his oil technique as w T ell as his naturalism from the Flemings. At the same time between his clumsy drawing and the accuracy and delicacy of his prototypes the interval is considerable. His St. Christopher in the same church (1484) may still be recognized, despite the repainting. Here we have a hard,- curly-haired, peasant’s head, perhaps a Guadalquiver boatman, with narrow skull, low brow, and full occiput, large and round black eyes and arched eyebrows, large cheek- bones and lips, thin beard and receding chin. A piece, the Burial, by his son, Pedro, has also come to light in the Lopez Cepero Gallery. The 28 V ELAZQUEZ. disconsolate Pieta in the Sacristy de los Cdlices, by Juan Nunez, probably his son-in-law, rivals the works of the Nether-rhinish imitators of Dierick Bouts, in its dry painstaking and ascetic severity. The St. Bartholomew, the central figure of his reredos in St. Anne’s Chapel in the cathedral (1504), is a thorough Spanish monk, with heroic features, full flowing black beard and hair, and fiery glance, a man of the stock whence came the conquistadores, the smugglers and toreros, a man who may have wielded the sword at the conquest of Granada. The impulse to master the outward phenomena, the straining after a closer imitation of the whole and all its details lay in the very culture of the age. Assuredly the northern influence did not give this tendency to Spanish Art, but it furthered it to an incalculable extent. In this epoch appears a personality in many respects distinct, Alejo Fernandez, although of his life nothing is known except that in 1 508 he was summoned from Cordova to paint and gild the great reredos. His chief work in Cordova, the St. Jerome in the Convent of St. Martha, has disappeared, but a survival of his early period may perhaps be the Christ at the Pillar with the Penitent Peter, now in the museum. From the name of his brother Jorge Fernandez Aleman, who came with him, he appears to have been a Low German. The Cathedral of Seville preserves four of his large pieces, scenes from the life of Mary : The Meeting at the Golden Gate, the Birth of Christ, the Presentation in the Temple — in the dark sacristy near the high altar; and the Epiphany, in the large sacristy; all works unique of their kind. 1 Earlier observers detected in them the mancra alemana, or German style, while Germans themselves have been recently reminded of the Florentine school by the bold flow of the draperies ; now the figures are in Seville declared to be “ purely Spanish.” To me this Fernandez seems to have studied under Flemish influences. Flemish traits are the colouring, and the honest adherence to Nature in every detail, already free from petti- ness, but not without a certain stiff rigid harshness. The pale maiden, with the green gold-embroidered coif (in the Birth of Christ) seems to have accompanied him from Antwerp ; in her features, bearing and side glance this Madonna cannot deny her pedigree. But in the intellectual friction of those motley groups of artists, the painter has conformed to the local taste, and yielded more and more to the new world of the south. The vistas through arched halls, before which his 1 An opportunity was for the first time afforded of inspecting these pictures in the year 1882, when they were removed to the room set apart for repairs. Mediaeval Art. 29 figures move, are in the plateresque style of Felipe de Borgona, with Moorish details ; the views of town and hills are Andalusian, while the gold betrays the estofador. For his plebeian characters he seems at times to have had as models the semi-African populace of the Triana ; the St. Balthasar is an emir. Assuredly such diversified heads without repeti- tion, with such vigour, harmony, and animated expression, were scarcely again seen in the ensuing period of the Renaissance in Seville. But the Flemish style has already retired far to the background in the Virgen de la Rosa bearing his name, a Madonna and Child, with worship- ping angels in the trascoro of St. Ana in the Triana. The free, flowing lines, and such lovely hands ! the clear soft modelling in pearly tone, altogether a noble type recalling the old Venetians, such as Carlo Crivelli, only his metallic sharpness is replaced by softness. We are here in the presence of a riddle, such, however, as is not rarely presented by Spanish Art. Nor are paintings of this description very rare, and perhaps a few may yet be recognized as the works of Fernandez. In the same style are painted the eight founders of Orders and doctors of the Church in St. Benito de Calatrava, although somewhat older. But to meet figures comparable to the Virgen de la Rosa the small provincial towns must be visited. In Ecija, Marchena, Carmona, and elsewhere, many a surprise awaits the explorer. He will find in St. Jago at Ecija, and St. Juan at Marchena, above the same altar where are those eight Flemish pieces, six figures of saints, male and female, the latter especially worthy rivals perhaps of the noblest Florentine and Venetian quattro- cento work. Seldom has the ideal of saints or martyrs been more faithfully interpreted than in these figures of faultless proportions, refined beauty in features, neck, hands, diffused by a sensuous charm, a calm proud dignity and sweetness. Truly a real treasure of past memories are these forgotten figures in the forgotten churches of districts seldom visited even by the natives themseves. They are, possibly, by the same Pedro Fernandez de Guadalupe, by whom was executed the well known Descent in the Chapel of Santa Cruz. One cannot but wonder how this promising school was so short lived, in a few decades giving place to a wearisome century of a cold pedantic art. Some one hundred and fifty years later a gifted artist again awoke the genuine Spanish type of saints, though animated by a somewhat more mundane spirit. The following epoch, completely occupied with new and difficult problems, condemned mediaeval paintings to oblivion. Within half-a- century of this Fernandez’ decease everything produced by the middle 3 ° Velazquez. ages in statuary and painting before Michael Angelo was pronounced "abominable.’' "Whatever is ugly,” says Pacheco, "without art or spirit, is called Flemish.” The name of Fernandez is not even mentioned in Pacheco’s work, otherwise so rich in personal references. Pablo de Cespedes, also, who shows a warm archaeological feeling for old Chris- tian Art, considers that the chief merit of Fernandez and his compeers was their skill in gilding and painting wood carvings. For him the old times were only “ the ashes from which was to spring the Phoenix of our day.” The Mannerists. The Renaissance was ushered into Seville during the first decade of the sixteenth century. At that time Michael the Florentine was occupied with Archbishop Mendoza’s monument (1509), while Niculoso Francisco, from Pisa, was turning out terra-cottas in the Robbia style. In 1519 Don Fadrique de Rivera bespoke in Genoa the monuments of his parents, the richest example of the Italian sepulchral style in Spain. But in the third decade we already meet the plateresque style of the Spaniard Diego de Riano and his associates, treated with perfect mastery and a stamp of individuality. To this period belong those sumptuous buildings so richly decorated with sculptures, the townhall, the great sacristy, and the royal chapel. But not till the middle of the century do we meet with groups of painters of the pure Italian school, who break completely with the past. About the same time the Jesuits made their appearance in Seville (1554). The new era had dawned somewhat earlier in Castile, where Alonso Berruguete, who returned from Italy in 1520, and Gaspar Becerra are described as " the extraordinary men, who banished the barbarism that still held its ground there.” So wrote, in 1585, Juan de Arphe y Villafane, when he was engaged in Seville on the great monstrance. His family, of German extraction, had for three generations been occupied with the goldsmiths’ work of the great cathedrals of Spam, giving free scope to their inventive faculty in three successive styles — the late Gothic German, the plateresque of the Renaissance, and the neo-classic. The last of the Arphe group broke with the picturesque style of Diego de Siloe and Covarrubias, of whom the latter, although said to have been inspired by Bramante and Alberti, could never quite forget the modern, or Gothic. Thus these works, which certainly did not lack unity, came to be stigmatized as of a mixed style ( mezcla ). Arphe’s statements The Mannerists. 3i regarding the changes of taste down to the Escorial style were accepted until the present century. This “Spanish Cellini’s” didactic poem, Varia Comensuracion, in three books (1585), became the gospel of the Spanish cinquecento, preaching rigorous regularity, the eschewing of the arbitrary and phantastic, sobriety in the ornamentation. He aspires to teach the right proportions, from the human figure and architectural works down to the sacred vessels of the Church, whose splendour culminated in those gigantic monstrances which were his family’s best title to fame. 1 The study of proportion and of the nude became the guiding star of painting ; the beautiful became a function of numbers. Alonso Berruguete had brought from Italy the perfect proportions of the ancients — ten face- lengths to the whole figure. He at first met with opposition ; but he was supported by Gaspar Becerra, who had worked with Vasari in the chancel of Trinita dei Monti in Rome ; and who had also prepared in Rome the drawings for Dr. Juan de Valverde’s Anatomy (1554). This was the time when the Spanish artists flocked to Rome and Florence, where they spent a part of their life, and occasionally even settled permanently. “All the great men produced by Spain in sculpture and painting, Berruguete, Becerra, Machuca, the ‘ Mute,’ Master Campana, Vargas pride of our city, after passing the best of their life in incredible efforts in Italy, striving with more than human spirit to leave behind an eternal memorial of themselves, chose the way pointed out by Michael Angelo, Raphael, and their school.” 2 And Pablo de Cespedes glorified Buonarotti as the new Prometheus, comparing him also to Pindar ; a grace such as that of Raphael had never before been seen, he thought, and would never again be seen ; Correggio’s figures seemed brought down from heaven itself, so that “ every brush must fain yield to his.” He doubtless also calls both the Zuccari, his masters, “ true depositaries of the treasures of this Art.” But Michael Angelo is still the great luminary of the globe, far excelling the ancients, peerless in all three arts, and “ whoso sits not at his feet shall acquire little vigour and less grace.” 1 The monstrance is properly the vessel in which the host is fixed vertically when held up to public adoration, But the word is used here, as elsewhere, for the more or less conspicuous “tabernacles” on the altar where the monstrance itself with the host is kept under lock and key when not exhibited to the congregation. These taber nacles are sometimes very large and sumptuous objects. — Translator. 2 Pacheco, El Arte i., 41 1. 32 Velazquez. Nevertheless on the first introduction of the new style more foreigners, mainly Netherlanders, appear on the scene in Seville. The northern stonecutters, glass painters, and carvers of the Gothic period were now followed by a stream of painters from the same region. But even before this irruption some painters on glass had already adopted the Italian manner. For many years, from 1534, Arnao de Flandes and Arnao de Vergara had supplied the great church windows, pompous compositions full of figures after Italian models ; in the Lazarus, for instance, may be detected the influence of Sebastian del Piombo. But for variety of subjects and styles, as well as execution, all were eclipsed by the Brussels artist Peeter de Kempeneer, known as Maese Pedro Campana in Seville, where, according to Pacheco, he died in his ninety- eighth year, in 1588. He was one of those who, after passing through their native schools, during their Italian travels developed an individual style, constantly modified according to circumstances. He first appears as a decorative painter of the triumphal arch at the entry of Charles V. into Bologna, in 15 30. Then he studied the antique, and Pacheco still possessed many of his “ learned pen-and-ink drawings.” None of his successors adhered so closely, especially in the draperies, to the old statues. But in his masterpiece, the reredos of the Mariscal (1553), we recognize a deep study of Raphael, to whose lines few of that school approached so near. The “ Presentation of the Virgin,” in the Mariscal Chapel, is a monument of the culture of the beautiful by which Art was at that time dominated. Of his native gifts he remained most true to the Art of portraiture. Don Pedro Caballero and his family in the Predella are still admired by the Spaniards as types of the genuine old Castilian nobility. Although inferior to Holbein in firmness of touch, in greatness and delicacy of characterization, they far surpass everything else produced in Seville during that century in the development of portraiture. Here alone he is thoroughly satisfactory. At the same time Campana appealed most effectively to the Sevillans in his Descent of the Cross in Santa Cruz (1548), in which the old Flemish severity and Michaelangelesque forms are peculiarly blended. In the true German cosmopolitan spirit he has here assimilated the ascetic sentiment of his neighbours ; he is more Spanish than the Spaniards. In the course of four-and-twenty years he also painted altar-screens for other Andalusian towns, as well as for Carmona, Ecija, and in the Cathedral of Cordova. Nevertheless, in the opinion of the local Art critics, something of the dry Flemish style still clung to Campana and his fellow-countrymen. They lacked the “good manner” — that is, the free, broad, animated outlines — of the “ ftomano-Florentine” school. This school has its analogy in contemporary The Mannerists. 33 literature; its source is Raphael with his divine simplicity and incomparable majesty ; but Raphael himself learnt it from Buonarroti, the “ Father of Painting,” superhuman in the nude. This buena manera was brought from Italy by Luis de Vargas, the “ Light of Painting,” who had entered Rome with the hordes of the Constable of Bourbon, in 1527. “His greatest gift to Seville w T as fresco painting,” a gift, however, which did not pass to a second generation. His mural paintings have unfortunately, for the most part, perished, only a few traces surviving of the colossal figures on the Giralda, figures which at that time “for grandeur of drawing and nobility of expression” passed for the chief ornament of the city. His Last Judgment, in the Casa de Misericordia, shows that he over-estimated his powers, this indifferent botchwork being scarcely comparable to similar essays of the Italianized Flemings. His Shepherds in the cathedral, where he still describes himself as a tyro ( Tunc discebctm, 1 5 5 5 ), is nevertheless the most free from mannerism, and is rich in really beautiful and noble heads, possibly because painted under his still fresh reminiscences of Rome. But Vargas’ success may have been partly due to the scope he gave to sensuous beauty under mystic names. At the same time his attitudes and expression are cold and artificial, his features borrowed, his compositions crowded. His pupil, Villegas, who also imitated Raphael’s bambinos, as in the Holy Family in St. Lorenzo, is but a weak reflex of the master. The reader already surmises what kind of masters are here in question. General regular forms, indifferent meaningless faces, postures disposed with a view to display anatomical knowledge, foreshortenings, the arrangement in space calculated to obtain difficult problems in perspective, complete sub- ordination of the colouring. In Italy and the Low Countries many of these works would fail to attract attention, and it is difficult to understand what their contemporaries found to admire in these “ restorers ” of painting. It is further noteworthy that almost eve^important work was based on an Italian original, or on the copperplate by which its composition was transplanted to Spain. The engravings of Marc Antonio and the Ghisi were well known and popular ; Pacheco mentions the works of the Wierix, Egidius Sadeler and Lucas Kilian, while Cespedes tells us that plates after Spranger were spread broadcast. A somewhat later and personally remarkable artist was the Cordovan prebendary, Pablo de Cespedes (1538 — 1618). He was twice in Rome, the first time for seven years in close intimacy with Cesar de Arbasia, an Italian, who later executed frescoes in Malaga and Cordova, works displaying far more invention and character, especially in the broad effects of space and light, than those of his Spanish contemporaries. 3 34 Velazquez. The second time Cespedes went as friend and supporter of the unfortunate Archbishop Carranza, accused of heresy* and on his return got ordained, probably by way of precaution. He helped Zuccaro with the frescoes in the Trinita dei Monti and Araceli, and devoted himself to an intelligent study of the antique, Christian and modern Art treasures in Rome. The name of this learned and highly cultured man is most favourably known by the genuinely earnest and sonorous strophes of a poem on painting. The fragments rescued by Pacheco suffice to show that in this work we have lost the best didactic poem in the Spanish language. In painting he is distinguished from his con- temporaries by such features as powerful, heroic figures, dignity of attitude, vigour and depth in colour and shade. But he seldom realizes his own spiritual conceptions, as, for instance, in the Holy Conversation, in St. Ann’s Chapel in the Cathedral of Cordova. Those who draw their judgments from books will probably further tell us that he was “ the great imitator of Correggio's best manner . . . and one of the first colourists in Spain ” (Pacheco). Those that only use their eyes will say that his large pieces in Cordova, Seville (the four Allegories in the chapter-house), and Madrid (Academy) exhibit Roman influence more especially in its far-fetched and wearisome aspects. His stumbling-block was the “ grand manner ” with which Rome had bewitched him. His deep studies in this atmosphere resulted in meaningless gestures and faces artistically grouped, with dreary generalities and conscientious avoidance of Nature. “ Do you not know that a portrait need not be like? It is enough to make a head according to the rules of Art.” He was so annoyed at the praise bestowed on a splendid vase in his Last Supper that he effaced it, perhaps conscious that the thoughtless admirer had unwittingly uttered a bitter truth. Cespedes shows us these Spanish cinquecentisti in their strong and weak aspects. Their studies were thorough and scientific, their ideal lofty, their culture universal and refined. But their whole energies were devoted to generalities, leaving them no time for a glance at the realities of life. Their physiognomies, their mimic Art, their groupings were all borrowed, artificial, pretentious, and for the most part without a breath of Nature. Their home was Rome, and they thus failed to grasp the national spirit. To later obser- vers they appeared in a higher light as the associates of the glorious epoch of Charles V., and in truth they were well suited for the Court of an emperor who was surrounded by Italian, German and Spanish captains and statesmen; who was ubiquitous in his world-wide dominions, in whose suite were the poets Boscan and Garcilaso, under whom Machuca planted a heavy Renais- sance palace in the Alhambra itself, and Berruguete played such pranks that the decorative style of the period has been named from him. The Mannerists. 35 Still symptoms are not wanting that even from contemporaries the “ good manner” met with but qualified approval. Accounts of commissions indif- ferently executed, Berruguete’s quarrel with the Benedictines in Valladolid, El Greco’s troubles with the chapter of Toledo, the spiritual retreats to prepare for their work — all went to show that the artists returning from the semi- pagan schools of Italy could not without much effort find their way to the hearts of their fellow-countrymen. To this period belong those names which have become as famous for some imperishable works as for eccentricities unexampled in the history of modern Art. Berruguete’s grimaces and convulsions in the St. Benito reredos, Juan de Juni’s uncouth distortions, Morales’ frightful vampire figures, El Greco’s ghosts and caoutchouc forms — these last in countless repetitions — show how rapidly their stock of acquired knowledge and taste was exhausted, and how readily they could trade upon the simplicity of their public. They may possibly also have endeavoured by powerful attractions of this sort to overcome the indifference shown for their learned style. But while under the depressing influence of the Italians they lost all sense of the national spirit, the reaction was sure sooner or later to set in, which led in the seventeenth century to a revival of the Spanish feeling. Felipe de Guevara, a contemporary of Charles V., had already indicated imitation as the bane of Spanish talent. At the close of the sixteenth century this vapid Art rested only on the weak shoulders of a few laggards, such as Pacheco and Alonso Vazquez. The last achievement of the period was the tomb of Philip II., in which the best features of the three Arts were displayed jointly with poetry. In this ambitious structure the best statues were executed by Martines Montanes, a young sculptor, who was destined to transmit under another form the spirit of the moribund school to the next century. His groups and figures, breathing a classical sense of form and a pensive earnestness, if somewhat monotonous, still exhibited a new and national charm foreign to the Italian style through the application of a bright painting in oil colours combined with gold. Juan de las Roelas (Born about 1558; died 1625). The chief energy of this not yet sufficiently appreciated painter, who according to Palomino, was born in Seville of Flemish parents, was displayed in the first two decades of the seventeenth century. He gave Cean Bermudez the impression that “ he understood the laws of draughtsmanship and com- position better than any other Andalusian.” It would be more to the point to Velazquez. 36 say that he was the first real painter that the sixteenth century had given birth to in that region. His beginnings and early development are obscure, and works of his survive conceived in the characterless, frosty style of the mannerists. But his known masterpieces appeared even to the refined taste of the artists of the last century to be distinguished by “ Venetian colour- ing, great vigour and grace.” He was the first to combine naturalism with mysticism, the two elements whose fusion imparted its special character to the Sevillan painting of the next generation. But this style he appears to have acquired later in life, and, as was said, of course in Italy. Yet in his forms, in his sentiment and technique there is a peculiar blend of the Spanish and Flemish way, and to this foreign ingredient may perhaps be due his lack of full recognition. He handled all the popular elements of Spanish devotion with rare invention and great success, almost every piece showing him in a new aspect. He gives us sturdy, at times coarse, figures and broad well-nurtured faces, some of an Andalusian but some also of a Teutonic cast. His subjects are full of life, pervaded by an irrepressible cheerfulness, alike displayed in the solemn events of Scripture, the familiar scenes of the Holy Family, and even in paintings of martyrs. His angelic choirs, fair, blooming, rose- crowned country maidens, with round white shoulders and full arms, are intoxicated with light, music, and festive joy. The often grim asceticism of his precursors, as well as the sober, timid earnestness of successors such as Zurbaran and other laymen, pale before the thoroughly Rubens-like cheerfulness of our clerical artist. But, what is most important, Roelas was the first Sevillan painter in chiaroscuro, which he even made the characteristic feature of his Art. His system is quite peculiar. He banishes the grajq brown, and black shades, and models the chief figures in a warm tone, either yellowish or reddish, with vivid, saturated, transparent colours, such as orange, deep crimson, blue or violet, now in the direct play of light, now as a silhouette in a warm half- tone ; and then he breaks through the scene with a broad sunlit middle distance, over against a flood of heaventy light bursting through the clouds. In his chiaroscuro, in the grand cast of his figures, which are crowded forward as if in too confined a space, in his simple dignified draperies, in the softness of the flesh tints, he recalls rather the school of Parma, Schidone for instance. Only his genial, national, unaffected simplicity is somewhat akin to the northern spirit. Roelas' earliest dated works, the four Scenes in the Life of the Virgin, painted in 1603 in Olivares, where he held a living, have scarcely a trace of his peculiar manner. But, strange to say, the same remark applies to his Roelas. 37 very last works, also executed there — Pope Pius V. laying the foundation stone of St. Maria Maggiore, for the high altar, and the Shepherds (1624). This however may be due to some confusion in the seriously defective accounts extant of him. One thing is certain, that he first-found favour by his inter- pretation of the Purisima , a mystic subject ever dear to the Sevillans. Here the Madonna hovers in the clouds, encircled by angels, above a marine inlet, with the symbols distributed over the landscape. The Death of Hermenegild in the Hospital de la Sangre also belongs to this first period, the difference between which and the following is most remarkable. The St. James at the Battle of Clavijo (Cathedral, 1609), an apostle transformed in warlike Castile to a Cid (a second destroying angel, says Lope), in white mantle, waving a white flag, mounted on an apocalyptic steed, bursting out of the canvas on the tumultuous mass of flying Moors, in the rout hewing and trampling each other down, with a sea of a hundred thousand horsemen in the background, was a figure of hitherto unexampled vigour of action and chiaroscuro — a figure never approached in the following period. On the other hand his Death of St. Isidore of Seville (in the church dedicated to him) is an attempt to paint a scene full of figures in the broad daylight of a church, where the perspective appears to reflect the event supposed to have taken place on the very spot. Here Zurbaran seems anticipated ; but, although intensely realistic, on the features of the venerable martyr is expressed the ceaseless, spiritualizing work of a long life of action and contemplation. Compared with this, Domenichino’s Death of St. Jerome expresses nothing but repellent physical decay. The Liberation of St. Peter (in his church) displays a Michaelangelesque grandeur and breadth in the figures, which are here suffused with a mystic yellowish half-light. From a distance we seem to see Peter falling in an outburst of thanks at the feet of the Saviour, whereas later artists, such as Spagnoletto, expressed nothing but the alarm or sudden start on awaking. Roelas’ Pentecost in the Hospital de la Sangre is unrivalled in Seville as a representation of an assembly full of apostolic dignity, but under the guise of the most genuine national types. No oratorical gestures, no forced ecstasy, nothing but that almost cheerful sensation which accompanies true elevation of the spiritual faculty. Here a warm mild light from a radiant sun falls on the semi-circular group in the foreground, while those behind are buried in gloom. At times he also gives us scenes in which are marvellously blended the mystic symbolism and homely, familiar motives which were so much in favour at the time, and which were so widely circulated by the Flemish Velazquez. 38 copperplate engravers. The child Mary, on her mother Anna’s lap, studying a miniature codex, in a sky-blue, star-bespangled dress and little gold crown, roses, fruits, and forget-me-nots, with sweetmeats, on the sideboard, is the work (now in the museum) which earned for him the censure of the bigoted and jealous Pacheco. He calls it skilful in the colouring, but lacking decorum (ii., 198). But Roelas’ masterpiece, and the best painting produced in Seville before Murillo, is the central piece in the grand reredos of the Jesuits’ (now University) Church. It would be perfect but for its complex character, for it really comprises five separate subjects rolled into one. Still the Mary is a delightful embodiment of tender, dignified womanhood, in a liquid golden tone suggestive more of some of Rembrandt’s female portraits than of Titian. To form an adequate idea of Roelas’ inventive powers and execution one should visit the Church of the Barefoot Friars in San Lucar de Barrameda on a bright sunny da}'. Here are over a dozen of his works, nine above the high altar, treating the most diverse subjects from the Gospels and the legends of the saints. Amongst them are a Baptist of manly beauty preach- ing ; a youthful St. Laurence joyfully resigned to his fate ; a powerful dead Christ surrounded by angels ; a lovely Madonna ; a St. Catharine bending her neck to the headsman ; a St. Agnes and other martyrs. In 1615 Roelas went to Madrid and competed for the vacant post of painter to the king. But he was passed over in favour of the wretched portraitist Bartolomd Gouzalez, portraiture being at that time the chief occupation of the Court painters. Of Roelas no portraits are known to exist. Francisco de Herrera (1576—1656). While Roelas seems to have at all times been caviar to the general, the versatile Herrera the elder, architect, fresco, oil and distemper painter, etcher and copperplate engraver, is apparently still a popular favourite. The Spaniards regard him as the creator of their national style, a role which seems to have been first discovered in the time of Raphael Mengs. “ He was the first,” says Cean Bermudez, “ who in Andalusia threw off that timid manner, to which our painters had so long adhered, and created a new style which reveals the spirit of the nation.” Hence his portrait in the Biblioteca Colombina bears the legend : Forma un nuevo estilo proprio del gcnio nacional (“ He created a new style adapted to the national genius ”). Then this clue was followed Francisco de Herrera. 39 up by critics at second hand, as thus: “Not a trace of Italian imitation, no concession to the Art of the past ; ” and again : “ The emancipation of the school of Seville was the thought of his life.” 1 Even in his youth already a wild misanthropist, he educated himself in solitude, a pure naturalist from the first, full of scorn for the narrow, petty theories of the school of Vargas. In the latest history of the school terms like titanic , genius , marvel and Michael Angelo are still freely bandied about. 2 “ He already contains all in himself — Velazquez, Murillo, Caro — although in somewhat rude form, but still with the vigour and stamp of genius. He was the first who there threw open the gates of naturalism." We begin to understand this bias when we read how Herrera is said to have gone to work at the easel. “ He drew with charred reeds and painted with a house-painter’s brush. Once when left in the lurch by his pupils, as occasionally happened, he had the canvas prepared by a housemaid, who daubed it over with besoms and brooms, and before the paint was dry, he worked in his figures and draperies.” This sketch of the patriarch of our modern “ impressionists ” may be completed by the character of the man. For according to Palomino he was so stern, harsh and ruthless that his own children fled from the paternal roof as from a hell on earth. His daughter entered' a convent, and his son Francis went to Italy, taking with him “ 6,000 pesos ” (dollars). His skill at engraving he misapplied to coining, and escaped from justice by taking refuge in the Jesuits’ College of St. Hermenegild, for which he painted the altar-piece. When Philip IV. visited this church in 1624 he heard of the occurrence, and sending for the delinquent thus addressed him : “ The man who possesses so much skill should not misapply it. What need is there of gold and silver? Go ! You are free ; only beware of a relapse.” Coming now to what is vaunted as his greatest work, the Last Judgment in the parish church of St. Bernardo, although in a subject of this sort he must have been entirely in his element, we feel ourselves disenchanted, if not altogether to his disadvantage. Here the chief group is the Heavenly Assembly, a large semicircle in the style of the Disputa, with the Judge in the centre. But His right hand is held up blessing the saved, while the left encircles the Cross, the expression showing nothing of that wrath of Buonarroti, which, as Pacheco remarks, seems eager to destroy and consume the universe. He is the gentle Son of Man of Raphael’s creed, shown even in the head inclined to one side. In the Heavenly Court we at once recognize Roelas’ Pentecost, only the 1 Gazette dcs Beaux-arts, 1859, iii., 169 ct scq. a Narciso Sentenach, La Pintura in Sevilla, 1885. 40 Velazquez. shadows are darker, the glance more strained, the types more varied, always vigorous and true, at times trivial, but never vulgar. Amongst them are some striking heads, while all betray a certain individuality. The deep earnestness of their eager gaze, as all hang in suspense on the Judge of the world, makes the stillness of this awful moment as it were visible. On the other hand the lower portion is disposed of somewhat more summarily — to the left a group of wretched sinners and devils ; to the right the elect marshalled like soldiers in serried ranks awaiting the summons. In front stands the tall, knightly, somewhat prosaic St. Michael with uplifted sword, altogether the most prominent figure of this section, throwing the rest into the background. Cean Bermudez praises “ the art of the composition, the contrasts of the figures, the well-balanced groups, the elevated, philo- sophic expressions.” The colouring and chiaroscuro are those of Roelas, only somewhat more vigorous. The light penetrating from the left divides the vast tableau and gives a sharper outline to the figures ; the colouring is more pasty, less softened, eked out with brown touches. Several other remarkable paintings are executed in the same style. Such is the hitherto neglected St. Ignatius in the University, breathing the almost fanatical devotion of the pious Spaniard. These works give an idea of the manner, by which Herrera established his reputation and, as Jusepe Martinez assures as, “ earned the universal esteem of all competent to judge.” To Palomino, his oldest biographer ( Museo iii., 314), Herrera’s Art seemed quite Italian, with powerful drawing and vigorous chiaroscuro. The truth would therefore seem to be that Herrera derived his style from Roelas, who came to Seville, and attained perfection when the former was in his thirtieth year (1607). Doubtless no one calls them teacher and pupil; but how far they agree is shown by the fact that Roelas’ Pentecost was assigned to Herrera by such an experienced critic as Bermudez. There is nothing special in Herrera except his temperament. But according as success gave him self-confidence, as soon as he knew his public, he revealed a nature impatient of all restraint, and gradually felt all bounds to be irksome shackles. Perhaps he felt more at home in the fresco technique, in which he executed some works that have long perished. He also essayed a simpler process. At first he seems to have hit upon a chiaroscuro in the manner of Caravaggio, possibly without having seen his works ; in any case he was the first who in Seville applied the abrupt masses of shade peculiar to the Italian naturalists. A proof of this is the large Pentecost in the Lopez Cepero collection, which he exception- Francisco de Herrera. 4i ally signed and dated, as if fearing a work in that manner might not be recognized as his. 1 From Palomino it was known that at first Herrera painted genre subjects, a taste in his case associated with a characteristic tendency towards tavern and gypsy life. Such profane scenes are no longer to be found in Spain, where they have disappeared in the region of the unknown. Yet Herrera’s Art is so striking that it has been possible to recover a notable work of this class — the Blind Musician in Count Czernin’s collection, Vienna (No. 64). The figures are half-length — an old man playing a rustic lyre ( lira rustica) such as is still found amongst the Savoyards, his youthful guide holding his slouched hat towards the wayfarers, whose movements his brown goggle-eyes follow with a half-plaintive, half-furtive glance from under his head of thick black hair. It is quite in his pasty manner, with many unsoftened and dauby touches in hands and faces, but executed with a firm grasp and with such distinct technique as readily to be distinguished from any Dutch work of the kind. This, with the tremendous St. Basil, expounding his doctrine, in the Louvre, are the only works of Herrera known to exist outside Spain on the Continent. Realistic tendencies always found ample scope in the monkish legends covering the walls of the cloisters. In St. Buenaventura, besides the figures still preserved on the ceiling, Herrera painted four scenes from the life of the titular saint, three of which are now in The Grove at Watford, brought thither by the Earl of Clarendon from Spain. The monks’ heads and attitudes in the convent of the gloomy church, the group of the local hidalgo family and others are here realized from the life with unparalleled naivete, executed in a shimmering yellow and greenish grey chiaroscuro, with the loose round contours peculiar to this artist. The Penitent Peter in the Seville Cathedral is also essentially a genre piece. He looks like an old peasant who might have had the misfortune to kill somebody in a passion, and is now overcome by the fear of hell. Under a bare projecting brow, and between prominent cheek-bones, are planted small black eyes ; but in such hard features there is no scope for sentiment. The two huge canvases in the Seville Museum, SS. Hermenegild and Basil, give a forecast of the extravagance of his later period, and lend plausibility to those legends which Cean heard about “ old painters,” who must have been born eighty years after Herrera’s death. Mainly through these works he has found his way to the hearts of the modern public. They CD \ 6 lJ Catdlogo (Sevilla: i860), Nr. 548, 7' 5" x 9' 4". 42 Velazquez. are wild daubs in which he casts off the rules of Art as a maniac does his clothes. These wretched scrawls cannot even be credited with direct colouristic qualities, for neither colour nor chiaroscuro effects can be dis- covered in them. Nor is there any expression, and nowhere can be seen a more vacant, insipid Christ. The powerful unstudied cast of the figure alone reminds the observer that he here contemplates the ruins of a great talent. In his seventieth year (1646) he executed his most comprehensive pieces, formerly in the Archbishop’s palace — the Manna, the Water springing from the Rock, the Marriage of Cana and the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. Here we see that his changed but still powerful hand can give motion only to the colossal, to assembled multitudes. The fourth of these works at one time hung on the staircase of the Madrid Academy. Beneath a mighty broad-branching oak is seated the Saviour, His large bright eyes turned upwards as He blesses with sacramental solemnity. The disciples are disposed close by, while the five thousand are happily suggested in the slight depression of the middle distance. Towards the close of his career he was again drawn to Madrid, where he died in 1656. Herrera was not the “ discoverer of a new style,” for his true, genuine style is merely the language of Roelas spoken by an artist of fundamentally different character. Nor did he lead the school of Seville on the road to that freedom which is already recognized in the works of Roelas. We fail even to find in his productions any figure of such fierce energy as the St. James, any heads more realistic than those in the St. Andrew, while few traces can be discovered of the delicate and manifold light effects which were at the command of Roelas. No Sevillan painter can be indicated, who adopted his manner. Nor can he be called a naturalist, despite his genre pieces, for as a rule he was too impetuous to keep to his model. He mostly depicted himself, painting from his own brain. Altogether we are unable to assign any great worth to this so-called free manner (libertad y franquesa). One hears it spoken of as if it were the very essence of Art ; yet it is only a manner like any other, and one easily adopted by imitators. At most it is Spanish, because it lends itself to an indolent habit. Francisco Pacheco. (1571—1654.) While Roelas and Herrera were seeking new paths, Francisco Pacheco, a fellow-student of Herrera under Luis Fernandez, but a very differently constituted man, was still defending the moribund times in his teachings, Pacheco. 43 writings, and, as he fancied, in his practice, not however without a foreboding that he was preaching to deaf ears, nor even without concessions to the new order of things. Of the names on the muster-roll of Spanish Art few were probably less handsomely endowed by the genius of painting, however many-sided his talents may otherwise have been, for he was also a poet, a biographer, an archaeologist and Art theorist. At times he gives one the impression more of a reflecting amateur, who by Nature seemed exclusively formed to use the pen rather than the brush in his treatment of Art topics. But his abstract studies appear to have awakened in him a creative impulse which was as irresistible as the instrument was defective. A dogged will undertook an endless struggle with the obstacles presented by Nature, and apart from a painfully acquired skill his persevering methodic efforts produced nothing but an obstinate self-reliance, which was fostered by his frequent public contro- versies, and which emboldened him, in emulation of his betters and uncon- scious of the risk, to undertake the most breakneck enterprises. Yet a spark of that wit which he lacked would have sufficed to make him pause before such attempts. His unimaginative, slow and petty spirit might anyhow have rendered him competent to execute small portraits, or still- life and genre pieces. But he possessed nothing of that self-knowledge, which enables others to recognize their natural limitations, and confine their efforts to a narrower, less ambitious field. Possibly he might never have risen to the surface, but for the social position for which he was indebted to the prominence enjoyed by his family, and especially by his uncle, the licentiate of like name. To this Church dignitary, humanist, and poet, he owed the ecclesiastical connections which were followed by the favour of the Duke, of Alcala, the “ Maecenas of Seville.” The biassed judgment of friends, and even enthusiastic verses from real poets and distinguished patrons, soon stifled any doubts he might have felt about his own powers. Brought up amid the local monuments and memories (his very name is Old Iberian), and having never travelled abroad, Pacheco eagerly devoted himself in a warm patriotic spirit to antiquarian researches, to artistic and decorative productions, such as the unclassical polychromatic treatment of wood-carvings. This brought him into collision with his friend Montanes ; against whom him he defended the painting of statues by specialists in this line instead of by the sculptors themselves. But in the exclusion of gold and in the use of lustreless colours which he intended to introduce, his reformed polychromy ran counter to the popular taste. The earliest specimens of his technique were Nunez Delgado’s John the Baptist in 44 Velazquez. St. Clement’s, and such productions of Montanes as the St. Dominick for Portacoeli, the Crucifix of the Carthusian Monastery (in the small sacristry of the cathedral), and the St. Jerome in Santiponce. But the most remarkable of these works were the two noble, lifelike heads for the statues of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier in the Casa Professa, now University Church (1610). Then he tells us how as a young man (1594) he painted five crimson damask banners, thirty and fifty ells long, for the Indian galeons, with the arms of the monarchy and Santiago as a matamoros, and had also a hand in the bronze-coloured figures of the tomb of Philip II. in the cathedral. Historical painting he began with the life of St. Ramon Nonnatus of the Calceate Friars, for their cloisters. On this he worked jointly with his friend Ildefonzo Vazquez, one of the last of the Vargas and Mohedano school, who drew and composed more freely and more skilfully than Pacheco. To both the subject was congenial enough — scenes from the stirring life of this heroic rescuer of Christian slaves. Of the six pieces by Pacheco two are in the Seville Museum, and one in that of Barcelona — the Calling of the young Shepherd Ramon by the Holy Virgin, the Embarkation on the Spanish Coast, and the Return of the Rescued Christians. These feeble essays, in which he strains every nerve to keep pace with Vazquez, are chiefly characterized by a stiffness in the figures which betrays the tyro, by a botchy composition, and heavy draperies. The angels who tend the flock during the vision, conduct themselves like the “young ladies” in a provincial boarding-school. The Embarkation alone, where Asensio fancied he recognized in a boatman the portrait of Cervantes, who was in Seville in 1 598-99, is thoroughly lifelike, a genuine beach scene. Here he succeeds better than ever did the more skilful but affected Vazquez. In 1616 Pacheco painted for the hospital of Alcala de Guadaira a St. Sebastian, now in the parish church dedicated to that saint. The scene where the Christian soldier after his agony is sought under cover of the darkness and tended by the matron, Irene, has several times been treated by distinguished painters. The night, the dread atmosphere of persecution, the mangled body of the young martyr in a deadly swoon, the eager care of the deeply agitated women — here was a theme worthy of a Schidone, a Spagnoletto, a Delacroix. How is it handled by our Art reformer, unwarmed even by the suns of Andalusia? In a tidy spacious chamber of the Alcala Hospital lies a man in fresh linen in a newly made bed, holding a soup-bowl, of a blue Pacheco. 45 striped pattern. Before him stands a woman with the impassive, pale features, the wearied glance of a hospital nurse, while a little girl places some bandages on a plate. Above the settle hangs the rich uniform of an officer, on the walls are the arrows preserved as relics. Through an open window is visible the scene of the martyrdom, the whole thing reminding one of the trumpery votive paintings of attesting miracles, such as are seen exhibited in St. Peter's at canonizations. Nevertheless it arrests attention by a certain truth, although a truth of the lowest order, like some local event related with the circumstantial triteness of the village chronicler. Pacheco’s youth still lay within the period when efforts were being made to conform to the Romano-Florentine school. The great Italians he honoured from afar with a glowing homage ; he declared that “ in virtue of a secret natural impulse he had from his tenth year always imitated Raphael, under the influence of his glorious inventions, and especially of an Indian ink drawing,” of which he was the fortunate possessor. 1 His special prototype was Pablo de Cespedes, like himself, poet, artist and archaeologist. But this homage and these studies were by no means purely academical. From time to time he was seized with the mania to take his place by the side of his heroes, and even in certain particulars to improve upon their works. In 1603 Don Fernando de Rivera, Duke of Alcala, who had perhaps read of the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, bespoke of Pacheco for a thousand ducats a ceiling-piece in this style for the principal storey of the “ House of Pilate.” Being ignorant of the fresco technique he painted in distemper on canvas, depicting mythological scenes on a black ground adorned with grotesques, with nearly all the figures hovering and strongly foreshortened in horizontal perspective. They included the Apotheosis of Hercules, Ganymede, Astrsea, Perseus, Phaeton, and Icarus, hence successful or abortive aspirations heaven- wards. In a round central space stand the twelve gods in couples in spiral perspective, where the nude bodies are so disposed as to look like winding balustrades. But while aspiring to emulate the daring tours de force of a Giulio Romano, who makes light of the most difficult problems in draughts- manship, as he does of decorum, he has evidently his misgivings as regards his “ Flight of Icarus ” (ii., 24). Yet the much respected Pablo in Cordova praised the creation, and duly received a sonnet in thanks. This first manner appears somewhat purified in the large Annunciation, which he had to place just above Roelas’ masterpiece in the reredos of the Jesuits’ Church. The work betrays endless studies, especially in colour harmony, to which the mannerists appear to have previously scarcely paid 1 Arte de la Pintura , i., 318 (libro ii., 5). 46 Velazquez. any attention. It is painted in a full light with bright clear tints, orange and blue, and in the angels’ draperies’ blue, yellow and pink forming the chief contrasts. But how could a vecino de Sevilla, as he calls himself on the title- page of his book, give birth to such a marionette figure as this Gabriel ? And what features of grave-diggers are these others ! Pacheco was nearly forty when he at last decided to visit the Court ( 1 6 1 1 ) ; and now for the first time he beheld originals of his admired Italians in Madrid and the Escorial. He made a friend of the Iberianized Italian Vincenzo Carducho ; and in Toledo visited El Greco, who at that time had already fallen into preposterous ways. This journey had for him more than one result. The tenacious man of principles was still too much of an artist to shut his eyes to such influences. Henceforth his palette and brush seem transformed ; his inven- tion is more natural ; his stony manner becomes quickened ; his sharp, smooth, meagre treatment yields to a broader, more robust impasto style. Already in the four small portraits of the predella under the still harsh, brick- coloured Death of St. Albert (1612), in the Lopez Cepero Gallery, one detects a warmer tone, a fresher conception, speaking eyes. Now he opened a school of painting, and henceforth his house became to the last a trysting-place for artists and friends of Art. “ His studio,” says Rodrigo Caro, “was a formal academy of the most cultured Sevillans and strangers.” His self-confidence henceforth knew no bounds, and it cost him not a qualm to grapple with the Last Judgment, most difficult of all religious subjects. In his book he gives us four certificates from theological authorities on this work, executed in 1614 for the Convent Church of St. Isabella, for seven hun- dred ducats. He introduces many departures from the traditional treatment! the heathen figures that deformed Buonarroti’s work, as well as phantastic mediaeval accessories such as the yawning jaws of hell, were expunged. The arrangements of this Master of Ceremonies of Doomsday remind one of Overbeck, when of a Sunday morning he entertains the visitors to his studio with homilies on the Symbolism of his Cartoon ! The Archangel Michael (1637), transferred to London after the Revo- lution of 1868, attracted attention through its powerful colouring combined with his old hardness of touch. He lived to see the rising star of Murillo, having survived till 1654, and consequently witnessed that artistic event, the representation of the Virgin under the features of a true daughter of Spain. Pacheco’s own Purisima in the picture with the portrait of the poet Miguel Cid (in the Sacristy de los Cdlices ) stood at the antipodes of his new embodiment — a long, wearisome, repulsive, swollen, sleepy face of a nun ! Paciieco. 47 Pacheco's “ Art of Painting." — Those familiar with the personnel of this branch of literature might guess beforehand that a painter such as has just been described would write a book. Like everything else that he took in hand this was a longwinded affair, which however he had the good fortune to see through the press in his extreme old age. In this lifelong work various phases are naturally to be distinguished. Thus, while it mainly follows the severe tendencies of the previous century, the later views and principles of naturalism twine like creeping plants round that central stem. Pacheco’s Arte de la Pintura was the work not only of a painter and master of technique, but also of a scholar, as shown by its thoroughness and taste for quotation. For every point the best authorities are referred to; questions of ecclesiastical archaeology are discussed with his friends of the cowl ; the section on the worship of images is a theological essay ; the scholastic doctrine of ideas he takes from the Jesuit Diego Melendez (i., 224). On the question of the social status of painters the juristic definitions of honour are appealed to ; no topic has been more warmly discussed by Spanish painters than this delicate point of their classification with ordinary artizans in the schedules of the Income-tax Papers. On aesthetic notions reference is made to the old rhetoricians, as to Cicero on decorum and honestum. But even in his own department he prefers quoting the more instructive passages, “ the authority, ” of the Italians, from Alberti and Leonardo down to L. Dolce and Paolo Pini. Diirer also and Van Mander were translated, while the dryness of the subject is relieved by scraps of didactic and descriptive poetry, in which are occasionally preserved precious fragments of the Andalusian poets. Nevertheless the book is no mere compilation of odds and ends, but bears the stamp of a work by an artist full of interesting matter, critiques, and sentiments. It is specially valuable for the numerous notices of Spanish artists, giving an insight into the party spirit, the burning questions and current opinions of the times. Of many controversies we should otherwise know absolutely nothing, into such profound oblivion have fallen the ultra- Radicals and Know-nothings of those days. Here, being himself a partizan, his language becomes warmer and more coloured. In a word, while we have often scarcely patience to look at his paintings, we read his book with increasing interest, the more so that it is written in pure, clear Spanish. In its pages we make the acquaintance of a man at once limited and many-sided, painfully narrow-minded and liberal, cosmopolitan and patriotic, a humanist yet in the confidence of the Inquisition. Those who have spoken slightingly of the book merely show that, even if they have read it, they were incapable 4 8 Velazquez. of appreciating it. The use made of it in the present work will make it evident how mistaken was the judgment that pronounced it “ as erudite as it is useless.” At the same time, the section on which Pacheco himself placed most value — a sort of canon of religious painting — is full of eccentricities. His aim was to be critical, as indeed was his nature ; his highest ambition was to be thought worthy of the honoured name given by Petrarch to Homer : Primo pittor delle memorie antiche. In some of the most popular legends, such as those of St. George and of St. Christopher, his critiques undoubtedly sound a jarring note for many. He maintains that truth is above Art, nay, even above the wants of the devout. “ Religious paintings are books for the people, but they should be truthful books. . . . Unfortunately the leading artists are far too fond of the freedom of their conceptions, impatiently shaking off the yoke of reason. In their works we see more ingenuity than religious tact.” That group of St. Anne teaching her child, so lovingly handled by Roelas, and later by Rubens and Murillo, is heterodox, “ because from her conception Mary already possessed reason, free will, contemplation, natural and supernatural knowledge,” and therefore needed no teaching. He praises Diirer who never exposed Mary’s holy feet, thanking the Inquisition for having restrained this licence. But if he here deprives us of much that is beautiful, he gives us com- pensations. He knows the "bill of fare” of the repast served up to Christ by the Angels in the wilderness (one of his own paintings) ; lie determines the instruments used at the scourging, by means of authentic relics ; he describes the Apostle Paul, as if he had seen him in the flesh. A glance at the religious painting of the next . period suffices to show that this pretended reform was merely the stillborn whim of a pedant. This worthy person never imagined that it was this very freedom that was destined to effect in Spanish religious Art a profound and genuine meta- morphosis still animated by a never-fading freshness. The cause of religious painting he considered lost for the rising generation. " How many are competent merely to understand this testimony of mine ! Alas ! no hope of improvement ! ” Naturally the Inquisition could not have confided the office of inspector of paintings to a more trustworthy person. This happened in 1616, his colleague being Juan de Uceda : yet no one was less suited for the position of an inquisitor. Durer, with whose life and works he was intimately acquainted, he looked on as a kindred spirit, repeatedly referring to him and ranking him next after Buonarroti and Raphael. Pacheco. 49 His “Book of Portraits .” — Far more satisfactory are Pacheco’s essays in the department of portraiture. His few extant specimens in oil show familiarity with the Court portraitists, and from Sanchez Coello he had learnt how likenesses may be completed in the absence of the subject (ii., 139). He further mentions one hundred and fifty miniature portraits, of which he regarded that of his wife Maria de Parama as the best. But the most useful part of his life-work were the busts of distinguished Sevillans, of which he thought of publishing a selection of about a hundred. He tells us how he devoted to their preparation the time that others give to recreation. He had collected one hundred and seventy, amongst them some women, and in 1599 the collection was roughly completed. The title-page — Libro de descripcion de verdaderos retratos de ilustres y memorables varones — bears this date. The sheets are drawn with black and red chalk in rich borders sketched with pen and ink in the current Renaissance taste. The models were woodcuts such as the Basle edition of the Elogia of fovius (1577); but they are much in the manner of Ottavio Leoni’s drawings, which however he became acquainted with later, and which are incomparably more lifelike. Pacheco was well suited for this work by his social position and highly developed “organ of veneration.” A marked preference is given to the ecclesiastical element which comprises three-fifths of the whole. There are also seven poets, three painters, two musicians, a surgeon, a cannon-founder, and two swordsmen from the wars of Granada. All are not equally authentic, and on his own confession he drew several from mere descriptions (ii., 143), “in order not to deprive them of such an honourable place.” Others seem to have been made from memory, most however from sketches, and all are reduced , to exactly the same size and form. The publication possibly failed through the expense of the plates and the lack of competent engravers. The short biographies are drawn from well chosen and thoroughly trustworthy data, reports and anecdotes. But for Pacheco we should know nothing of contemporary poets except their verses, and even for some of these we are indebted to him. When compared with some of his successors, such as the erudite Nicholas Antonio, it must be allowed that here Pacheco is still the artist ; he gives us real portraits, rich in colour and characteristic, not meagre dictionary articles. After his death the work appears to have been distributed amongst several of his admirers. But for a long time it lay hid in a convent, until in 1864 one volume with fifty-six articles was brought to light and secured for eight hundred duros by the advocate Francisco M. Asensio of Seville. 4 50 Velazquez. Venetian Painting. El Mudo . — Even in mediaeval times the magnetic pole of Spanish taste seemed already to lie rather towards the north-east, as seen for instance in its relations to Gothic as compared with Italian architecture. What a series of cathedrals and foundations, some like those of Salamanca and Segovia, continued far into the sixteenth century, despite the already intruding Renaissance ! When the oscillating tendencies in painting are weighed, the scales seem to incline more towards the Netherlanders than their Romanesque rivals, not only in the fifteenth but also in the seventeenth century. For this reason their affinities lay more with the schools of North Italy than with the Romano-Florentine. We see what a sorry exhibition they make at and after the time when Buonarroti and Raphael were carrying all before them ; but they no sooner come in contact with Venice and Parma than success crowns their efforts. North Italy, the old Gallia Cisalpina, has its ethnical elements distinct from those of Tuscany and Rome, while it has never disowned its kinship with South France and Catalonia in painting as well as in speech. In those regions Nature was preferred to the ideal, colour to draughtsmanship, grace and action to beauty, pictorial perspective illusion to architectural symmetry. The Valencians Ribalta and his pupil Ribera had visited Parma ; the Sevillans became familiar with the teachings of the Lombard Michaelangelo Amerighi ; the first who amid the predominance of Romanism spoke to the heart of their fellow-countrymen came from Venice. The relations of the painter of Cadore to the Emperor Charles and his son (since 1530) had brought a number of masterpieces to the palace. Philip also sought to secure Paul Veronese for San Lorenzo. Titian's religious paintings in the Escorial could not fail to produce their effect on the group of artists banished to that wilderness. In the year 1575, almost coincidently with Titian’s death, Venetian style was for the first time cultivated in two independent places in Spain. The most noted of the native painters in the Escorial colony was the Navarrese Juan Fernandez Navarrete of Logrono (born about 1526), known as the “ Mute,” from the dumbness by which he was early afflicted. Like those Andalusian Romanists he had passed the best period of his life in Italy and Rome. The little picture which he showed Philip II. as a specimen of his skill, the delicate clearly painted Baptism of Christ (Prado, 905), is quite of the “ Raphaelesque ” school, or, if you will, that of Giulio Romano. The king now (1569) commissioned him to execute a series of large works for San Lorenzo— statuesque figures for the most El Greco. 5i part severely drawn and modelled, with well-thought-out attitudes and foreshortenings, hard and cold like his native highlands. But his slum- bering sense of colour was soon awakened by the arrival of the aged Titian’s Last Supper and St. Laurence. While his model for the St. Jerome (1570) is Michael Angelo, and for the Holy Family fin the upper claustro) Zuccaro (after C. Cort’s print), in the Scourging he surprises us with a Passion piece in the manner of the Milanese Crown of Thorns ; the Burial of St. Laurence also is an echo of the famous Night Scene in the Jesuits’ Church, Venice, and in the Escorial. Although now nearly fifty years of age he abandoned his own laboriously acquired style, the change being most conspicuous in the six pairs of Apostles with hilly landscapes which he executed for the side altars of the Escorial Church (1575-78). Philip II. thus found in one of his own subjects a better painter than those brought at a heavy expenditure from abroad. But, “ alas ! life has reached its goal, and Art has scarce begun.” He died in 1579, and no one was found strong enough to stretch his bow. El Greco . — A proof of the attraction Venetian Art had for the Spanish e}^e is seen in the welcome given to the works of El Greco. At the very time a Navarrese was for the first time painting in the Titian manner in the Escorial, Toledo was visited by a Cretan Greek, who like Antonio Vassilacchi of Milo, known as 1 ’ Aliense, had studied the Venetian style at the fountain head. He was traditionally, and doubtless justly, regarded as a pupil of Titian, although his signature is always in Greek, with a Latin trans- lation of his Christian name Kyriakos : Ao/Ar/VL/cos QeoTOKOTrovXos Kprjs 67 tolcl. This artist is as remarkable for his rare pictorial genius, and for the impulse given by him to Spanish painting, as for the unexampled and in fact pathological debasement of his later manner. Biographers have hitherto studied him only from the time of his arrival in Spain (1575), but there still exists a number of authentic works belonging to his Italian period, works which rank with the best productions of the Venetian school. Nobody being aware of his existence, these works, notwithstand- ing their peculiar physiognomy, have long passed for Titians, Paul Veroneses, Bassanos, and even Baroccis. They are partly portraits, partly animated Gospel scenes in bold lines, and in the attitudes resembling Tintoretto, but richer in individuality and more solid in the colouring. Vistas of distant hills beyond the marble-paved piazzas and line of palaces give them a strong Venetian accent. He is also influenced by Michael Angelo as seen in many of the figures, and what is stranger still, old Byzantine reminiscences are betrayed in his invention and grouping. The Greek signature of El Greco occurs on a Healing of the Man Blind 52 Velazquez. from his Birth, in the Parma Gallery (No. 280), of which a modified but unsigned replica exists in the Dresden collection. He often depicted the Cleansing of the Temple, a large specimen of which, formerly in the Buckingham collection, is now in the possession of the Countess of Yarborough, catalogued as a Paul Veronese. 1 But his most comprehensive creation is the Disrobing of the Saviour on Calvary, formerly in the Manfrin Gallery, and assigned to Barocci. Christ stands in the centre, an embodi- ment of sublime resignation, His large brilliant eyes turned upwards ; to the left lower down three noble female figures, to the right a man with the borer stooping over the Cross. Behind tower up the heads and busts of the thronging troops, their captain in armour on Christ’s right hand, the man seizing His red mantle on His left. It would be difficult to find a work of the Venetian school richer in studies of character than this Disrobing. That he was at that time an eminent portraitist is evident from the half-length of the miniature painter Giulio Clovio (ob. 1578), in the Naples Studj, which in Parma passed as a portrait of himself. So also the study of light effects, the Boy Blowing a Coal, in the Naples Museum. That portrait of Clovio supplies a conjecture as to El Greco’s hitherto unknown career in Italy. He may perhaps have introduced himself as a fellow-countryman of the aged Clovio, who calls himself a Macedonian. His skill at miniature is revealed in one of his best early works, a replica of the Cleansing of the Temple on a small scale, with sumptuous architecture and ornamental details, in Mr. Francis Cook’s collection, Richmond. In the already mentioned large piece we see in the right corner four half-figures — the aged Titian, Michael Angelo, an old man (probably Clovio), and a young man with index finger pointing to his face, possibly the artist himself indicating those to whom he felt indebted. In any case his youth had been rich in experiences, and Pacheco who made his acquaintance in old age calls him a “great philo- sopher,” full of wise sayings and author of a treatise on painting, sculpture and architecture. In 1575 he made his appearance in Toledo, which he never again quitted, dying there in 1614. During these forty years he displayed an almost boundless activity, filling the Castilian churches with altar-pieces, the halls of prelates and cavaliers with portraits. But only in the earliest is his Venetian manner preserved. The first, which apparently brought “ By del Greco. Christ driving the Traders out of the Temple. There are about 32 figures in this picture, four whereof are the pictures of Titian, Raphael, etc/’ — A Cata- logue of the curious Collection of Pictures of G. Villicrs, Duke of Buckingham (London : 1758;, p. 3- El Greco. 53 him to Toledo, is the reredos in the Church of Santo Domingo de Silos where the architectural framework and the statues are also by him. The central and chief piece is the Assumption now in Pau, but a copy of which is still on the spot. The elements of the Frari altar-piece here reappear, but already in a Spanish environment. Mary soars aloft with out- stretched arms in ecstatic emotion. The Apostles are men from the Toledo mountains, who like true Castilians express their amazement still with dignity in a slow solemn gesture-language. The picture is thrown on the canvas with surprising power of chiaroscuro and in richly varied deep glowing colours. This performance opened El Greco’s way to the cathedral. Invited to execute the central piece for the new and spacious sacristy he resolved to figure his Christ on Calvary on an imposing scale. This chief work and masterpiece of his, occupying an honourable place in the richest church in Spain, for the first time in that country gave an idea of Titian’s Art, his plastic power, his vivid light and shade, his naturalism. In his capacity as a colourist El Greco here proclaimed himself king. But he was unable to keep on the high level of this work. Drunk with applause, unwarned by associates or judges whom he might have well respected, in the pride of his triumph piqued at the compliment that “he painted like Titian,” he degenerated into that reckless manner in which, as in the speech of “ a noble unstrung mind,” flashes only of his genius still occasionally gleam forth in those marvellous physiognomies and daring strokes of the brush. In Toledo’s crumbling eyrie isolated from healthy influences he sank lower and lower, painting like a visionary and taking for revelations the distorted fancies of a morbid brain. In portraiture alone a spark survived of his former greatness. Those of Pompeo Leoni at Keir in Dumfriesshire, and of the grey-haired Cardinal Quiroga (?) in the cathedral sacristy, Valladolid, still give a good notion of his powers, whereas the specimens in the Prado Museum are unfortunately very mannered. In St. Tome is a large picture, which, strange to say, passes in Spain as his masterpiece, although executed in his worst style. A group of cavaliers in the black dress of the Court of Philip II. assist at the burial of Count Qrgaz, whose body is being lowered into the grave by two ghostly figures, in whom one recognizes SS. Augustine and Stephen. “Around this painting,” we are told, “ the Toledans often gathered, still discovering something new in the portraits of so many cavaliers.” And in truth, at sight of these stiff, ceremonious attitudes, these grave motionless glances, giving the impression of an assembly of apparitions, one must fain confess that the foreign artist had a good eye for national peculiarities. 54 Velazquez. His popularity was doubtless partly due to his children’s and women’s heads, for which he certainly had models to be envied on the banks of the Tagus. In the round heads of his children and maidens, thrown backwards and set on long necks, with deep gleaming black eyes, pouting lips, full round chin, warm ivory tone, childlike exuberance and artlessness are happily combined with budding passion. Unapproached is the pensive charm of his pale female heads, with their unfathomable dreamy eyes, some in their lace mantillas, some in the convent veil ; here we begin to understand the poetic fame of the fair Toledo dames. As religious enthusiasts precede the creative innovators of the times, this Iberianized Greek was a precursor of the masters that arose in the following century. The Toledan School. Although at all times a teacher of high repute, El Greco had no followers. Those recognized as his pupils would appear to be indebted to him for nothing but the elements of the Art or for impulses of a perfectly free order. From the aspect of their works alone we should scarcely think of associating any of them except the feeble Pizarro with this master. Orrente . — Pedro Orrente of Montealegre in Murcia (born about 1570, died 1644 in Toledo) is the only one who, besides other styles, also at times exhibits a Venetian physiognomy, which anyhow he appears to have acquired in Toledo. In the same apartment for which the master painted the Cuadro de las Vestiduras is seen the Miracle of St. Leocadia, besides the Shepherds and the Magi, with a shadowy likeness in all to Veronese. But then he discovered in the Bassano pieces a vein, whose popular harmonies were more akin to his homely nature than the pompous lines of Paolo. The taste for landscapes, pastoral and chiaroscuro pieces was long almost exclusively fed by these works of Bassano, whose number is legion in Spain. Hence our “Spanish Bassano” came also into great repute, and throughout that century his little pieces were an indispensable ornament to every boudoir up to the royal retreats themselves. They have been taken for works by his prototype and even by Titian, although his colouring is thinner and more delicate, and neutralized by a yellow tone. Many are even more diversified than his monotonous models ; in them we rarely miss invention, good landscape motives, thoughtful observation of rural life, freshness and fancy. To cattle especially he does more justice than any others, always of course excepting the Dutch. Maino . — In El Greco’s two other pupils, both Toledans, the Venetian Tristan. 55 influence died out. The works of the Dominican friar Juan B. Maino, who passed from the Convent of St. Peter the Martyr to the Court of Philip IV., are very rare. According to Martinez he was fond of ease and comfort, and evidently lingered long over his productions. His masterpieces were the four large pascuas in his convent church, one of which, the Epiphany, is now in the Prado (No. 2166 c.). When the national collection was broken up the others were distributed amongst provincial galleries. Here there is nothing Venetian except at most the naturalistic vein, and the varied wealth of colour in the costumes. The small angelic choirs alone remind us of El Greco. Very remarkable is the apparently independent contact in the general effect with Caravaggio in this artist’s first and best manner. Of course Martinez calls him the Lombard’s pupil, and it must at all events be admitted that no one approached Caravaggio nearer than this Spanish Dominican, even to his fondness for yellow draperies and superb armoured soldiers, as in rhe Watch by the Grave. His excellence at portraiture is attested by one or two specimens, such as a light-coloured Man in Don Sebastian’s collection, which, but for the signature, might pass for the work of a Dutchman. The portrait of the Jurist Diego Narbona, engraved from his drawing by Maria Eugenia de Beer, looks like a Velazquez. Tristan . — More attention has been drawn to Luis Tristan (born about 1586, died 1640), whom El Greco himself is said to have regarded as his best pupil, although, as shown by the rareness of his works, “ he was not favoured according to his worth by Fortune” ( Martinez , 185). Of his teacher, how- ever, no trace can be detected in him beyond the somewhat slim proportions broad chests, and small heads, and in some nude studies the powerful muscular development. The picture of his artistic character current in books is purely fanciful. Instead of consulting his somewhat inaccessible authentic works (Stirling-Maxwell thought him worth a trip to Yepes), the critics have generally drawn their conclusions from the laudatory language of El Greco and Velazquez, as well as from some apocryphal pictures in Madrid, which were again in their turn attributed to him on the ground of those very conclusions. His chief work in Yepes, the altar-piece of the Convent Church of St. Clara in Toledo, the Beheading of the Baptist in the Carmen Descalzo, and even the somewhat crude St. Francis in the Louvre, give a clear idea of his Art, which, while different enough from prevalent fancies, agrees altogether with the judgment of the old writers. Now whereas Mudo and EbGreco in our opinion were colourists, Tristan was a chiaroscurist. A glaring light from above illumines in sharp outlines the chief figures, whose blackish shadows fall away into the dark background. Only Velazquez. 56 he does not understand the art of massing his colours, and is altogether partial to strongly accentuated forms and colours, as well as light effects His religious histories have a national trait of earnestness and even of nobility. His invention and attitudes are not lacking in facility; but the heads remain somewhat vulgar and insignificant, yet the women are by no means devoid of a certain refinement and grace. In him we notice a period of transition, abandoning the learned draughtsmanship of the mannerists, but without taking decidedly to naturalism. In accordance with this Tristan’s contemporaries called him a “ second Caravaggio,” Martinez even maintaining that he had studied under Ribera. But his chief piece was executed in Yepes in the year 1616, when Ribera was still in the service of his father-in-law, turning out second-rate works. That Tristan developed his chiaroscuro style quite independently, thus anticipating the Sevillans, shows that, although not a very important, still he was not altogether an “ obscure ” artist, as he has been called. A favourable opinion of his portraiture is conveyed by the half-figure of Cardinal Sandoval in the winter hall of the Toledo chapter-house, apparently the best piece in that stately gallery of prelates. The artist’s power of observation is shown in the pose of the head, perhaps peculiar to the arch- bishop, and in the quiet penetrating gaze of the large black eyes of the man lost in thought during the sitting. Strange that even as a portraitist Tristan shows no trace of the Venetian process. He gives us, however, accurate, careful drawing on a general model, with uniform enamel-like carnations, in which the softening shades, the minutely painted hairs, are worked in with a delicate black, as by the northern portraitists of the olden time. SECOND BOOK VELAZQUEZ' YOUTH. 1599 — 1629. THE FAMILY — HIS STUDENT YEARS — NATIONAL TYPES — RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS — THE TWO JOURNEYS TO THE COURT — THE APPOINTMENT — MADRID— ART CIRCLES — COURT AND PALACE, MADRID — PHILIP IV. — OLIVARES — CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES — THE ITALIAN COURT PAINTERS — THE EXPULSION OF THE MORISCOS — RUBENS IN MADRID — IN- FLUENCE OF RUBENS ON VELAZQUEZ— THE BACCHUS (THE BORRACHOS OR TOPERS). DON FADRIQUE DE RIVERA. The Family. D IEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA VELAZQUEZ was born in Seville in 1599, the same year as Van Dyck, one year after Zurbaran and Bernini, two after Sustermans, three before Calderon and Alonso Cano. He was the son of Juan Rodriguez de Silva and Dona Geronima Velaz- quez, and was baptized on June 6 in the parish church of St. Pedro by its cure, the licentiate Gregorio de Salazar, Pablo de Ojeda of St. Magdalena’s parish standing sponsor. He probably saw the light the day before in the house, No. 8, Calle de Gorgoja. It was an old tradition that his father came of an ancient Portuguese family, which at one time held a high position, renowmed for services rendered to the Crown, but which had long fallen into poverty, and further that his grandparents had removed to Seville ( Palomino ). But fuller information regarding this family was first disclosed by the publication of the official documents from the records of the Order of St. Jago in Ucles. Diego Rodriguez de Silva and his wife Dona Maria Rodriguez came from Oporto to Seville, where was born their son Juan, father of the painter. His mother was daughter of Juan Velazquez of Seville, and of Dona Catalina de Zayas, daughter of Andres de Buenrostro. Both families ranked as Sevillan hidalgos , or members of the inferior nobility, and according to Zurbaran familiars of the Inquisition had been chosen from both, a fact which passed as a proof of spotless descent. They however did not use the title of Don. His paternal ancestors belonged to a branch of the Silva family, widely spread throughout the Portuguese province of Minho e Douro. According to the testimony of some nobles of that kingdom, who after the revolution had re- mained loyal to Spain, their solar or ancestral seat, Quinta de Silva, lay eight or nine miles from Oporto, and three from the Benedictine Monastery of Tibaes 6o Velazquez. The progenitor of the Silvas was the Spaniard Don Guterre Alderete de Silva, mentioned as a descendant of Don Fruella, King of Leon. He assisted Ferdinand the Great at the capture of Coimbra, and about the year 1040 settled in the neighbourhood of Valenca in the "Tower,” which from him takes the name of Torre de Silva. His son, Don Payo Guterres da Silva, was Governor of Portugal under Alfonso VI., and founded or built the great Benedictine Monastery of Tibaes (1080) nearly four miles north of Braga To this branch belong many Portuguese noble families, including some marquises and counts. About the year 1660 some relations of the Sevillan Silvas were settled in Oporto, where they ranked as cavaliers, and as such held certain posts of honour. Carreho tells us that he once met in the palace a Calatrava knight, Morexon Silva, who intended visiting the painter, calling himself his cousin. It therefore appears that our painter’s proper name is Silva ; yet Diego adopted that of his mother, Velazquez, although usually signing himself Diego de Silva Velazquez. Probably the change was due to some family arrangement substituting the old Sevillan name for that of the foreign immigrants. The practice of taking the mother’s name, and even that of the maternal grandfather or uncle in addition to the father’s was in any case common enough in Andalusia, and often gave rise to serious complications. The name Diego Velazquez had been famous since the days of the recovery of Granada and of the conquistadores in the New World. It was borne by one of those Cistercians, founders of the Order of Calatrava ; and of him honourable mention is made is the Acta Sanctorum ; the conqueror and first governor of Cuba was also a Velazquez. The personal name Velasco, whence was derived the patronymic Velazquez by the old genitive ending in s, was very common both in Spain and Portugal, assuming in the latter country the successive forms Valasco, Vaasco, and Vasco, on the analogy of Pelayo, Payo; Melendez, Mendez; Venegas, Vegas, etc. In the Spanish Dictionary of Artists occur five Velasco and five Velazquez. But the most distinguished of all is the Vclascus, whose signature is attached to the great painting of the Pentecost in Santa Cruz of Coimbra, perhaps the foremost painter of the old Portuguese school, though scarcely identical with the semi -mythical Grao Vasco. The name Diego is considered to be a form of Jago, or James, in Portuguese Thiago, and Latinized Didacus, a form with which our artist signs some of his works. Lastly Rodriguez is the Gothic Roderick. I he family does not appear to have lacked means ; the painter had a His Student Years. 6i slave in Seville, and his colleagues there assure us that he never painted for money. Zurbaran certifies that they always lived as noblemen on their private income, and were accordingly held in much esteem. The memory of his noble ancestral lineage was apparently not without influence on the artist’s career. It may explain his yearning for the Court, as well as the hankering after official posts far from advantageous to his Art. On the other hand, considering the still prevalent prejudices of the upper classes against the painter’s craft, his early determination to adopt this career argues for the strength of his inclination towards Art, in which he can scarcely have been actuated by material prospects. His Student Years. On the boyhood of Diego we lack the usual anecdotes of the Vasari type. We are told, however, that he was brought up by his parents on the “ milk of the fear of the Lord,” and that he attended the grammar school, where he made no little progress in languages and “ philosophy.” To judge from his subsequent success at Court, he not only learnt Latin early in life, but also all the accomplishments of a cavalier. “ But although he betrayed a decided talent for every branch of knowledge, he show’ed these qualities in a far higher degree for painting. His copy-books he turned into sketch-books ” ( borra - dores). Here one expects to hear of his father’s opposition, of his contempt for painting as unbecoming to a gentleman of birth and so forth. But Juan de Silva was more liberal-minded than Messer Lodovico, Buonarroti’s father. Dame Fortune, which ever smoothed his path through life, also spared him this trouble. “ His quick intelligence gave his parents a lofty idea of his gifts.” Hence they felt that the lad might make his way in this career ; they could not bring themselves to oppose him, and so “ let him follow his bent.” From that moment he gave up his other studies. This early bent may have been awakened by the paintings which he beheld in the churches as soon as he had eyes to see. But which of these works first attracted the bright brown eyes of the handsome curly-haired youth ? Was he captivated by the quaint charm of those gold-glittering productions of the school of Sanchez de Castro, full of strange and lovely features and curious dresses ? Was he first awestruck by the marvel of long departed men surviving in the mirror of painting in the Mariscal Chapel ? Or did he detect the power of chiaroscuro in Roelas’ works ? Who shall now say ? The question of finding the best teacher was easily solved. People whose authority was consulted in such matters pointed to Francisco Herrera, who at that time, in the middle of his thirties, was displaying the full 6 2 Velazquez. vigour of his creative power. But this rough and vehement spirit scared the finely-tempered Diego, who was now entrusted to Pacheco. i urn studied fully five years and then in 1618 became his son-in-law. Assuming that he had remained with Herrera a twelvemonth, he would have entered his academy in his thirteenth year (1612) ... , Despite this early age and the shortness of his apprenticeship it has been somewhat generally assumed since the time of Cean that he was indebted to Herrera for the first impulse to that particular manner in which he stands alone in the annals of modern painting. Thus Ford writes : “ The principles of h.s [Herrera’s] method are to be traced in all the works of his pupil, improved indeed by a higher quality of touch and intention " 1 Penny Cyclopadta). But plausible as this may be it is open to some objections. The likeness between both manners is of a very general and vague character. Hie freedom of hand was a trait of the times, and long before Herrera it had delighted the Castilians in the works of El Greco. During his first decade little is to be seen of this “ freedom of the brush/ which was in fact gradually developed in Madrid, and strictly speaking in the second half of his career, under special conditions. At first we find a hard modelling and a drawing closely adhering to the model, the very reverse of the free contours of Herrera’s figures dashed on to the canvas in his impetuous way. 1 - 0 8 first works give the impression of a cool, deliberate nature altogether directed towards seizing the outward phenomena in their broad relations and special niceties. How could such a thoughtful student be assisted by the riotous “ Michael Angelo of Seville," who was still producing nothing but nameless beings of undefined character after his prototype, giants dwelling in the clouds and suffused with cloud-lights ? Here an observer of Nature ran against a visionary, and it was in any case fortunate that he was repelled by Herrera. To us Herrera seems at most to have helped him by the example of his genre pieces, in which Diego saw tendencies more in accordance With his own natural bent. _ But were the greater artist always the better teacher here might be applied the figurative expression : “ From horse to ass.” 1 He had been thrown by the fiery Andalusian steed ; but mounted on his sure-footed roan he now- jogged quietly along the weary road to mastery. Even Lope in his Laurel of Apollo makes Pacheco the lesser light : Y adonde Herrera es sol, Pacheco estrella. Probably no more diversely constituted men were ever thrown together than these two Franciscos. One was a born painter, the other a highly 1 Answering to the English expression : “ From bad to worse. His Student Years. 6 3 cultured man of many parts, but so little a painter that he prided himself much more on the orthodoxy than on the artistic worth of his productions. With Herrera all was spontaneous, while Pacheco never took a single step with- out reference to chapter and verse. Whoever passes from the life-breathing canvases of the pupil to the father-in-law’s wooden saints in the Prado Museum will surely exclaim with Richard Ford that Pacheco can have had no influence of any kind on Velazquez’ style ( Penny Cyclopaedia ). At that time he was still elated at the laudatory notices of his just completed Day of Judgment (1614). Then he undertook the St. Sebastian, and one wonders what the young Diego thought to himself as the work progressed. Why had not the worthy man kept to the miniature painting of contemporary celebrities, which lay within his depth, instead of launching his frail bark on the high seas ? Later, when reproached with imparting so little charm and beauty to more serious subjects, in which he might rival Raphael, Pacheco is said to have replied that he preferred to be the first in that coarse manner than second in the more delicate style (Palomino). Did Diego then learn nothing from Pacheco except how not to do it ? How could he in fact remain at all five years in that “golden prison of Art,’* as Palomino calls the father-in-law’s academy ? Was he serving only for his Rachel ? Even at that time there were many in Seville who held that nothing could come of this Pacheco. We need but recall the cruel lampoon on his Crucifixion in which the faithful are told that “ not love but Pacheco had so sadly crucified the Saviour.’’ Quien os puso asi, Senor, Tan desabrido, y tan seco ? Vos me direis, que el amor, Mas yo digo, que Pacheco. Herrera, who in his old age again met in Madrid the artist, now Court painter,- whom he had once driven from his studio, appears to have expressed himself to the effect that he was entitled to the merit of his pupil's education. At least a protest by Pacheco (i., 134) may be so interpreted. But in deciding this point Pacheco’s works have less to be considered than his method of teaching. Fortunately on this method his book gives us the most ample details from the general principles down to the technique of every pigment. As a teacher at all events Pacheco was no pedant. The less he was himself a creative master and stylist, the less the danger of his imposing any uniform system on his pupils. He was certainty a petty dealer in archaeo- logical wares, but otherwise a large-minded person. One scarcely believes 64 Velazquez. one’s eyes on reading at the conclusion of his laboriously composed method : “ But all that is here said and that might still be said and proved, by no means claims to tie down to these laws and ways those striving to reach the summit of the Art. There may still be other methods, possibly easier and better. We write only what we ourselves have practised and found recorded in writers, without wishing to impose burdens and yokes on good heads.” Thus Pacheco was a teacher such as a richly gifted pupil might well wish to find. Here also Diego had the advantage of a severe training, like the great Italians of the cinquecento ; for “ Drawing is the life and soul of painting ; drawing, especially outline, is the hardest ; nay, the Art has strictly speaking no other difficulty. Here are needed courage and steadfastness ; here giants themselves have a lifelong struggle, in which they can never for a moment lay aside their arms.” Without drawing, painting is nothing but a vulgar craft; those who neglect it are bastards of the Art, mere daubers and blotchers ( empastadores y manchantes). The painter must aim at perfection in all details. In the works of the masters we see “ much draughtsmanship, much consideration and tact, much depth, knowledge and anatomy, much purpose and truth in the muscles, much discrimination in the different kinds of cloths and silks, much finish in the parts, in drawing and colour, much beauty and diversity in the features, much Art in foreshortening and perspective, much ingenuity in adapting the light effects to the place ; in short, much care and diligence in discovering and disclosing those points that are most difficult to be mastered.” Here we see how his unimaginative nature leads him also to some quite realistic maxims. “ I adhere in all things to Nature, and if I could have her uninterruptedly before my eyes for each detail it would be all the better.” Accordingly he departed from the usual Sevillan method, which recommended the draperies to be painted from the lay-figure, and the figures themselves from small plastic models. After settling the rough sketch he made studies in oil from selected models for all the heads, taking the costumes always from life, the extremities from chalk drawings with heightened lights. But he prepared the picture broadly, without using nets, in order not to sacrifice the freedom of touch. In the colouring the most important element is the relief. The picture should stand out from its frame, lifelike from a near or far view, and should seem to move. Its vigour and contour exercise such a powerful effect on the eye that it may compensate for the lack of such important features as beauty (of proportions) and charm of colouring. Hence he goes so far as to pro- nounce it, with Alberti and Leonardo, the most essential part of the Art (ii., 9). His Student Years. 65 Nor was he an Eclectic, for at the conclusion of the elementary course he recommends students wishing to prepare themselves by copying great models “ always to select the style suited to our disposition and bent, in preference that of some one master.” In these words are laid down principles to which in fact practical appli- cation was given by Velazquez, who here conformed not to the works but to the precepts of his teacher. Some of these precepts apply as nicely to his compositions as if he had himself written them. Pacheco’s remarks on portraiture are specially noteworthy in this connection. The portraitist, like the poet, “is born.” The first and most indispensable quality of a portrait is undoubtedly resemblance, a quality, however, which is artistically of slight worth, and which lies within the reach of the amateur. Defects should not be disguised, though at the same time we need not imitate those who seem to have a sort of craze for accentuating conspicuous deformities. A good portrait painter should be something more, for those who cultivate this branch exclusively are as a rule satisfied with a vague, general impression, neglecting characteristic details, so that their works have all a family likeness. We should make it a point of honour to study the good style in colour, vigour, and relief ; then will the portrait afford enjoy- ment even to those unacquainted with the original ; in it are perpetuated both the painter and his subject, for it tells us what manner of men both were. From all this it would seem that Thore was right when he thought that Velazquez had to thank Pacheco for the delicacy and accuracy of his drawing. The prevalent misapprehension regarding this relation of teacher and pupil appears due to a common prejudice. Critics partly occupied in sifting the golden grains of true Art from the sandy deposits of the times, so educate the eye for the genial and masterly that they acquire a corresponding contempt for the qualities less commendable for gallery paintings. They fancy the rising artist must also be educated by similar genial teachers. But history proves the contrary. What little success had the great masters with many of their pupils, and what excellent results were often secured by slow, methodic, and mechanical guides ! The Spanish school can show several instances, such as Luis Fernandez, teacher of Herrera and Pacheco; yet no work of his was known to Cean, while Palomino does not even mention him in his lives of the painters. Pedro de las Cuevas also (1568 — 1635), of whom nobody ever saw a single painting, nevertheless educated a large number of the most distin- guished members of the Madrid school, while Murillo, Cano and Moya had for teacher the feeble Juan del Castillo. But how strikingly analogous the case of Rubens, who soon left the rough but intellectual Van Noort, although 5 66 Velazquez. undoubtedly a kindred spirit, and attached himself permanently and inti- mately to Otto van Veen, a scholar, poet, allegorist and gentleman, but one apparently not likely to win artistic sympathy ! Of all the early painters in Spain assuredly none were more akin to the future Velazquez than El Greco. Pacheco, who had visited him in 1 6 1 1 , recognized the genius of the man despite his horror of those savage scrawls ( crudes borrones). El Greco’s assertion that Michael Angelo was a good man but could not paint no doubt gave the young Velazquez food for reflection. El Greco was in his time as popular a portraitist in Toledo as was Velazquez himself afterwards at the Court. Nothing, however, has hitherto been found that might throw an)' light on the opinion the younger had of the elder artist. The case is different with El Greco’s pupil Luis Tristan, regarding whom Palomino has an apparently well-founded tradition. After speaking about inspirations derived from Italian paintings he continues : “ But his [Velazquez’] eye had most sympathy for the works of Tristan, whose tendency harmonized with his own nature both in the singularity of the ideas and the vividness of his inventions. On this ground he proclaimed himself his imitator and abandoned the Art of his teacher. In any case he had early enough perceived that, how- ever learned it might be, such lukewarm painting and drawing did not suit him, being opposed to his lofty nature enamoured of greatness” ( Museo iii., 323). It is amusing to read the comments on this passage by the writers, to whom with one exception Tristan was absolutely unknown. Some, like Cumberland, Viardot, Adolphe Siret and Madrazo, shrewdly dismiss him with a courteous bow. “ Velazquez’ praise, the honour of having been his model, suffice to ensure him a lasting name.” Others, who required to go somewhat deeper into the matter, evolved an a priori Tristan based on that passage. What manner of man was this Tristan who could so please Velazquez ? Let us see ! He was a pupil of El Greco, the Venetian run wild : so we may assume that he was a sort of tame or refined El Greco. This artist, says Thore, “introduced the technique of the Venetian school into Spain, and Tristan was in a measure the link between him and Velazquez,” as shown by the [reputed] portrait in the Prado, “ which continues El Greco and anticipates Velazquez.” In the small sketch of St. Jerome with the open red ground he sees “ the free touch and bright grading of colours,” which Velazquez borrowed from him. Even Stirling-Maxwell, who saw Tristan’s chief work, scarcely describes his Art quite correctly, when he says that, although not to be compared with El Greco in originality of ‘nvention, still he was a better colourist ; but Greco’s first good productions embody the full Venetian tradition, of which not a trace survives in Tristan. Again he states that of his splendid colouring Velazquez His Student Years. 6 7 learnt to transfer a few brilliant tints to his palette, whereas no painter especially at first, was more averse from brilliant colours than Velazquez. Lastly, this writer calls Tristan’s types vulgar, his Madonnas even coarse ; but let anyone compare his delicate, graceful, earnest, lovely Madonna in the Adoration of the Magi in Sta. Clara with the homely housewife in Velazquez’ work treating the same subject now in the Prado. Not till his return from Italy (1631) do Velazquez’ paintings gradually acquire the free touch, in which a resemblance may be detected to El Greco. But till then he had followed the system of the naturalists. The young artist, who in common with his contemporaries had a bent for chiaroscuro, probably discovered in Tristan the only fellow-countryman who was culti- vating this manner. And if on his way to Madrid he visited Toledo and its chapter-house we may also readily understand his partiality for Tristan. But even then he had already developed his first style. From this instance we may also see how Spanish painting had at that time independently come upon the track of the Italian naturalists. What in Italy itself had been nothing more than a brief, stormy episode conducted by adventurers, and followed by an equally transient interlude in other countries, became in Andalusia a “ golden age,” which gave to Spain her best painters. But, it may be asked, was this Spanish naturalism called into being by the impulse from Italy ? Pacheco seems to imply as much, calling Ribera the artist "who at present stands supreme in the treatment of colour” (ii. , 84). He several times refers to Caravaggio, that valiente imitador del natural, and in one place couples him with his son-in-law. When recommending constant adherence to Nature in all things, he adds: “Thus did Miguel Angel Caravacho, and with what success is seen in his Crucifixion of St. Peter, although it is a copy; thus did Jusepe de Ribera, for his figures and heads by the side of all the Duke of Alcala’s great paintings seem lifelike and the rest painted, although they have for neighbour Guido of Bologna. And my son-in-law, who is going the same way, also stands apart from others, because he has Nature always before his eyes ” (ii., 15). Of any originals of Caravaggio at that time in Andalusia nothing is otherwise known. The Duke of Osuna, who drew' Ribera from his obscurity, had after his return from Naples (1620) brought that artist’s works to his family seat, and to the local collegiate church containing the family vaults. Here they are still to be seen, the chief work being a Crucifixion. But Velazquez’ Epiphany already painted in this style bears the date 1619, and Ribera seems to have first become known in Seville through the works brought thither by Osuna’s successor Alcala in 1631. Consequently the stimulus to the new style cannot have come from Ribera. 68 Velazquez. National Types. On the young painter's first independent essays a few particulars are contained in Pacheco’s work. Regarding his former pupil, now a distinguished Court painter, this cautious writer would doubtless have sent nothing to the press that had not come directly from his heart. His remarks have reference to the bodcgones — that is, kitchen and other familiar scenes of homely life. Towards the end of the previous century these subjects had become popular in Seville, a circumstance apparently not altogether due to the growing luxury of the times. They comprised scenes from the tavern and the kitchen, street figures with the element of still life strongly accentuated, kitchen utensils, table-ware, dead birds and fish. The reviving impulse to grapple with realistic themes more closely led painters to the study of this “ Nature,” which lay most conveniently at hand, and from such studies arose this class of works, or “pieces” as they are called. Fifty years previously the Dutch had through the same tendency developed their kitchen-pieces , in which Pieter Aertsen was according to Van Mander a master in mixing his colours. The portraitist Michael van Mierevelt would also appear to have begun with such studies. The pleasure taken in observing the ways of the lower classes is illustrated by the minute descriptions in the popular romances, often degenerating to romances of the “ Newgate Calendar ” type. Their simultaneous appearance was assuredly no mere coincidence. Excluding the Lazarillo de Tormes, a small fore-runner by Mendoza (1553), the first and best work of this kind, the Guzman de Alfarache by the Sevillan Mateo Aleman, had appeared the very year our artist was born. This was followed in 1605 by Perez de Leon’s Picara Justina, Vicente Espinel’s Marcos de Obregon (1615) and many others. Anyone wishing to portray the adventures of the immortal knight of La Mancha would have found a model in these bodcgones. The Dutch cabinet painters of the seventeenth century were virtuosi, who catered for a wealthy public of loose morals and refined taste. The comic element in their works rests partly on the contrast of the subject with the profound but cleverly disguised Art. But in those early Spanish pieces what at once arrests attention is their bare unadorned truth. Not a trace is to be seen of majolica dishes with their metallic sheen, silver ware or Art cabinets, and they are altogether much more akin to the earlier Dutch works of Brueghel, Beukelaer or Aertsen, in which social life appears coarser and less attractive, but more direct and varied than in the later school. The Water-Carrier. 69 The aged Herrera had taught his sons these bodegoncillos. One of them, El Rubio, also drew little figures in the style of Callot, while Francisco, who later became famous as a religious painter, distinguished himself even in Rome by his fish pieces, and was there known as Lo Spagnuolo delle Pesce (“The Fish Spaniard”). The old-fashioned looked askance at this plebeian Art, and were already confounding the fish-market painters by the quota- tion about the Greek Pyreikos surnamed the Rhyparographer. For at that time the learned Spanish dilettanti were often more familiar with the annals of Greek Art than their own, as shown by Guevara’s treatise . So also thought Pacheco himself ; only remembering his beloved Diego he added by way of mitigation: “Are we then to hold these bodegones as of no account? No; they are certainly to be valued, that is, when painted as Velazquez paints them, for in this branch he has attained such an eminence that he has left room for no rival. They deserve high esteem ; for wit h these elements and with portraiture he discovered the true imitation of Nature, and encouraged many by his powerful example. . . . The figures must be ably drawn and painted, and must appear as lifelike as inanimate Nature ; then they will reflect the highest honour on their authors.” “ He kept a peasant lad as an apprentice, who for payment served him as a model in various attitudes and postures, weeping, laughing, in all imagin- able difficult parts. After this model he drew many heads in charcoal and chalk on blue paper, and made similar studies after many other natives (iwturales) , thereby acquiring his sure hand in hitting off likenesses.” The chief work of this class, the one that first became famous and included in his masterpieces, was The Water-Carrier of Seville. ' (42 x 31^ inches.) This work he took with him to the Court, and when the Palace of Buen Retiro was being fitted up, it was selected to adorn one of the apartments. Later it passed to the new Bourbon Palace where it was seen in 1755 in the “ Serenade Hall ” by the Italian Caimo together with many other works of the master. 1 But at that time this was the most esteemed, and its artistic and biographic importance is also dwelt on by Mengs, 3 who remarks that here may be seen “how Velazquez at first submitted to the imitation of Nature, finishing all the parts and giving them that vigour that he seemed to observe in Nature itself, studying the essential difference between the lights and 1 Letterediun Vago Italiano, i., 152. Pittburgo. 2 Letter a a d. A. Ponz., 51. ;o Velazquez. shades.” This judgment of the “ greatest painter of the century ” increased the reputation of the work, which was then engraved by Bias Amettler. Later it was carried off by King Joseph Bonaparte in his flight from Madrid together with the Bourbon jewels and Correggio’s Gethsemane; but after the rout of Vittoria both were presented by Ferdinand VII. to the Duke of Wellington and are now in Apsley House. THE WATER-CARRIER OF SEVILLE. The chief figure, a “ Corsican,” was certainly well known in Seville, and the young artist who soon detected his value as a model, may have induced him to act as such “ for a consideration.” After the malarious Laguna had in 1574 been transformed to the Alameda of Hercules by Don Francisco Zapata, it became the resort of the nocturnal promenaders in coach and on foot, and on feast-days was enlivened with minstrelsy. The watering of the dusty ground in summer was entrusted to the guild of agucidorcs under the control of a special alguazil (constable). The Water-Carrier. 7i They were mostly Frenchmen attracted by the colonial trade to Seville, and amongst them was our Corsican. In return for their services they enjoyed the privilege of supplying the houses throughout the year with the excellent water brought in pipes from the "Archbishop’s Well,” and conveyed round in large stone jars on pack- asses. The impression produced by the picture is heightened by the somewhat patriarchal Oriental association of the precious spring water in the thirsty land of Andalusia with its sultry African summers. Our Corsican, some fifty years of age, stands before a low table, his left hand resting on a large earthen jar with stopper attached to a string. With his right he holds by its foot the elegant chalice-shaped tumbler of clear water, which a hand- some lad of fair complexion stooping sideways over the table takes by the stem, altogether a charming motive. Between both is seen in the shade a drinker of like age but black-haired, his face half buried in an earthen mug. Our water-vendor is a stout, soldierly figure with full chest and erect carriage, to which full effect is given by the side view. His coarse brown doublet hangs without folds in almost conic shape, the wide sleeve pulled back and displaying the clean shirt-sleeve beneath. Despite the accumulated fat on cheek and neck, the leather-coloured face is somewhat hard and rigid, with high brow marked by prominent bumps, small deep set, narrow slit eye, almost straight broad-ridged pointed nose, contracted mouth, and wedge- shaped beard. Such is the profile. The stiff bronze profile, sharply lit up by the light falling from the left, presents a striking contrast to the buoyant figure, noble but still soft features of the handsome youth with their accidental and reflex lights, and the charm of the foreshortened sideward bend. This first thoroughly original work is still executed altogether according to the system of presenting the figures in the light from a dark background. There is no scenery, and the whole gives the effect of a tenebroso , although the shades and gloomy parts have become somewhat deadened owing to the practice of priming with ochre still prevalent during this first period. All is toned down by a thick varnish. In the light the treatment is pure and very solid, and the touches of the full brush in the Corsican’s face plastic as with Spagnoletto. This weather-beaten brown face is of a leathery tone without any variety of colour. Our artist’s broad sure handling with fewest possible modelling touches is here already fully developed. Although the details are so scanty and rendered little attractive through the lack of colour and worthlessness of the material, the picture nevertheless pleases by its absolute truth of form, texture and tone. This is seen, for 72 Velazquez. instance, in the tattered doublet, or smock, looking as if it had stood his friend in fair weather and foul half his life long ; in the wooden table, the yellow jar with its circular lines as it left the potter’s wheel, and the soft grooves pro- bably for fastening some ring ; lastly the sparkling crystal glass. Nothing is pictorially superfluous. Thus the vast rotundity of the jar serves to throw off the figures, the tumbler and shirt-sleeve to collect and reflect the light before the dark surface. How highly prized were these bambochadas , even when they were little more than studies is evident from the minute description which Palomino thought them worthy of. 1 “ Two poor persons eating at a scanty board, on which are sundry earthen vessels, oranges, bread, etc. ; all treated with remarkable care.” This, probably the other picture in Apsley House, seems to be a study of foreshortened faces. In a dark rocky cave is seated a young man in vanishing profile, applying to nis mouth a brown bowl, which perhaps contains a little chocolate ; his companion, his head resting on his arm, seems dosing over the table, taking a siesta after the meal and the wash-up of plates and dishes. A jug with an orange on top, an overturned mortar, a plate, three saucers on an upset dish, a green flask with straw covering — altogether an unattractive scene broadly treated in an earthy, inky tone. “A poorly-clad youth, counting money and totting up with his fingers; behind him a dog sniffing diverse fishes on the table ; close by a lettuce and an upset kettle ; to the left a stall with two stands, on one of which herrings and bread on a white cloth ; on the other two white plates and a green glazed oil cruise.” This must have been a piece of some merit, for it was signed ; but at that time already in a very bad condition. In the collection of the violinist, Mauro Dalay, who had gone to Spain with Elizabeth Farnese, and had returned to Parma in 1731, there was a piece with two facchine on a table — cost at that time thirty doubloons. Maria Louisa presented Goya with the “Youth at Supper,” which was afterwards sold for 2,930 francs with the collection of the engraver, V. Peleguer, at the Hotel Drouot in 1867. The Old Woman and Omelet. (39 x 46 inches). This kitchen piece, of same period and manner as the Water-Carrier, has lately passed from Sir J. C. Robinson’s collection to Francis Cook Es/p of Richmond Hill. Perhaps this is the third mentioned by Palomino, allowing 1 See his Masco Pictdrico , iii., 322. The Woman and Omelet. 73 for an inaccuracy in his description. The master's hand is unmistakable in its complete agreement with the Water-Carrier. The picture gives us a clear insight into the young artist’s sentiment, method and capacity. Probably never before had a Spaniard stooped to such an unpromising subject. The narrow smoke-begrimed kitchen, the modest "fixings” of an Andalusian peasant’s household, the few products of Nature needed by the frugal southerner, a very old peasant woman, and a repulsive kitchen lad, make up a picture more like the meagre than the fat scenes of this class by old Peter Brueghel. The woman stands in profile before the red pan on the fire, in w r hich two eggs are spluttering ; she holds a third in her left and a ladle in her right hand, as she listens with open mouth to the lad, who is probably reporting on his purchases. The chief figure is one familiar enough to guests in Spanish inns — one of those fussy, grumbling old dames, who at heart are kindness itself, taking to the stranger with almost motherly devotion, but sneering at his unintelligible Spanish, and bemoaning his wandering ways. She has sunken eyes with worn expression, short crooked nose under the open brow, long upper lip, complexion all the browner by contrast with the white toca. The lad on the other hand has an African type — low brow projecting from below, high cheek-bones, flat nose, protruding mouth, retreating chin, not showing to more advantage in the light from above. But he is withal a steady, smart young fellow, his hair cut straight and combed over his forehead, his hands coppery but well shaped. The inventory of his kitchen, presented in a subdued white daylight, was to the painter quite as important as his figures. The empty brass mortar and pestle on the table, the yellowy shining copper utensils, a plate of onions, capsicums and knife, the red wine, the brown oil-can with its green glazed coating, the white enamelled pan with blue flowers, the scales, the little basket on the wall, the melon, etc., are all reproduced with the con- scientiousness of a genre painter. With all its prosaic minute accuracy the treatment is by no means trivial, a firm full brush giving contours and surface with a few strokes. Nothing has been foisted in by the artist ; there are no studied light effects, for which the fire might have offered a rare chance; nothing of refined vulgarity and unseemliness, no professional modelling or picturesque costumes, or figures smacking of the studio ; no condescension ; nothing but downright honesty. It is a realistic piece, but radiant with a halo of impressions and memories of land and people. In the same collection is another piece, the Mendicant and Globe, attributed, wrongly however, to our artist. An old toper, laughing with the observer, places his four-handled wine-jug on a large crystal globe, emblem 74 V ELAZQUEZ. of his philosophy as reflected in the poetry of Halls. The globe mirrors a scene in the manner of Teniers — a pretty landscape with high vaulted sky, distant horizon and woodland, in front a straw-thatched tavern with a jovial party at the table outside. This work shows in all its details how Velazquez did not paint. The feeble manner of applying a light, thin short touch on a dull brown ground points to the period of Dutch decadence, with which the dress of the cavaliers standing on one side also corresponds. It so happens that this may be compared with the Spanish manner of treating such a subject. The Rouen Gallery has a painting there assigned to our master, but regarding which critics, usually so liberal towards apocryphal works, now apparently go out of their way to be hypersceptical. The face however has certainly been sadly daubed, seemingly to conceal a rent across the cheek. A gaunt figure of pronounced Spanish type, half-length, stands to the right, but fronting the spectator with scoffing laugh, and left arm planted insolently by his side. On the table in front stands a globe supported by four little props disposed in a circle, and two books close by. To this globe the right hand points carelessly from above with out- stretched index-finger, an extremely expressive gesture, even indicating a coarse Spanish expression of contempt. Here we have therefore a cynic, whose philosophy however is belied by his costly costume and carefully dressed hair. The head corresponds with the attitude. Small piercing black eyes under bushy eyebrows, narrow receding forehead, very prominent Roman nose, full mouth, showing two rows of white teeth, black hair neatly curled in the fashion of the period, thick upturned moustache, altogether the gaunt face of a Munchhausen. He wears a wide lace collar, and on his right arm a yellow cloak, folded and modelled with great care. This combined with the thin impasto, the deepened shades and preserved carnations (the hands), but above all the frankness of contour, attitude and modelling, agree with the Water-Carrier. A corresponding piece, which however is not free from doubt, and only partly completed, is the work which passed from the Earl of Clare’s sale for £ 34 14s. to Sir J. C. Robinson, and from him to Mr. Salting (29 x 23 inches). A lovely child about three years old, in a striped frock, perhaps his own daughter, is seated behind a table before a silver dish with grapes, one of which she holds to her mouth. The little epicure is gazing in the distance as if trying its flavour. Behind to the right is a man looking forward, again with a side and somewhat foreshortened bend of the face, and the glance of a true guardian. His nearly finished head, a blend of grey, white and red, belongs to that type of bushy eyebrows and depressed nose. Religious Subjects. 75 The child’s head is lightly sketched on the brown ground with broad white touches and rich shading, almost like a work in sepia ; besides a little green, the warm flesh-tones are represented only by a trace of red on lips and nose ; the string of the little cap passes over her fair locks. One hand only is visible in broad brown contour, the other apparently holding some toy. The table-cloth is only half suggested by a white horizontal touch. Similarly treated is the study of a female head with firmly closed eyes, apparently blind from birth, a gift from Don Francisco de Asis to the Raczynski collection. The nobly shaped head is sunk on the breast, with high eye-brows, straight nose, narrow upper lip, dark brown thick locks falling obliquely over the forehead. This study is excellently modelled, with more colour tones than the pieces hitherto noticed. A similar head has been recognized by some amongst the figures to the left in the View of Zaragoza (17 x 12 inches). Religious Subjects. The annals of Seville at the beginning of the seventeenth century supply eloquent contributions to the history of the downfall of Spain. If it persisted in the course it was then pursuing it seemed as if the city must be reduced to a Theban wilderness before the close of the same century. Under the feeble Philip III. {el tercero santo ) and his favourite, Lerma, the monastic establish- ments increased in number and magnitude more than ever before or since ; for Christians living in the world their very cities became too narrow. The first twelve years of the century saw the foundation of no less than nine new monasteries. They took place as a rule after long and obstinate resistance on the part of the municipality, as well as of the archbishop and chapter, who always raised " mountains of difficulties.” But from monkish tenacity of purpose and pious widows’ gold there is no redemption. Artists, however, might well resign themselves to this state of affairs. Even the young Diego began his independent activity as a Church painter forthwith entrusted with honourable commissions. His first works we may presume arose under the patronage of Pacheco, who doubtless saw in them the opening of a career destined to revive the glories of a Luis de Vargas. At that time the young man must himself have taken some such view of hisTuture. Pacheco’s good connections at once smoothed his way to one of the most influential cloisters, and here his firstlings were associated with a cult which in Seville had just received an extraordinary development. On September 8, 1613, the Nativity of Mary, a Dominican friar had de- fended the opinion of his Order on the Immaculate Conception, and the irritation 7 6 Velazquez. thus caused had stirred up a popular movement, which was eagerly seized upon by the clergy. Archbishop de Castro ordered a procession in testi- mony of this doctrine ; all parish churches, convents, brotherhoods, even the mulattoes and negroes organized festivities kept up for weeks together. It was resolved to send an embassy to the king imploring him to urge the definition of the dogma by the Holy See. The envoys were the Canon D. Mateo Vazquez de Leca and Bernardo de Toro, the latter of whom had set to music the lines composed by Miguel Cid, and this quartet was daily sung in the streets by high and low. 1 Anyhow the mission really procured a Brief from Paul V. (August 21, 1617), which at least went so far as to interdict the open advocacy of the less pious belief. It was about this time that, acting on the precedent of his teacher, our artist resolved to lay the tribute of his brush at the feet of the Purisima. The Calceate friars (Carmelites) occupied one of the stateliest foundations in the city, which during the War of Independence was plundered, and is now a barrack. From the great cloisters paved with flags of Genoese marble and rich encaustic tiles a broad marble staircase led up to the chapter-house, for which were ordered two companion pieces : John -the Evangelist in Patmos, to whom appears the Woman on the Crescent pursued by the Dragon ; and the Woman herself chosen as the emblem of that mystery. During the destruc- tive riots both pieces (54 x 40 inches), which are first mentioned by Cean Bermudez, were rescued by Canon Lopez Cepero, and eventually (1809) entrusted. to the English ambassador, Sir Bartle Frere, in whose family they still are. Now this was a theme which could be treated only with strict adherence to tradition, else even a superior work of Art might expect to meet with more opposition than approval. For poetic invention there was no scope ; for pictorial the time had not yet come. Hence a beginner who had made his first essays with scenes of low life, and at whose side stood a censor like his father-in-law, must here have felt himself not a little embarrassed. The subject had moreover been already handled by the first artists in some famous paintings. The Immaculate Conception was at that time figured only in the symbolic way. The historic representation of the middle ages, the meeting of the parents at the Golden Gate, or the preceding angelic annunciations no longer corresponded to the spirit of the times. For these was substituted that Vision 1 Todo el mundo en general a voces, Reina escogida, diga que sois concebida sin pecado original. Religious Subjects. 77 of the Apocalypse — a figure hovering in the clouds, the embodiment of virgin purity with allegorical interpretations of its theological significance. In the Spanish representations the glance is downcast and earnest, long light hair falling over the shoulders, the hands crossed on the breast or else upraised with the finger tips touching herself, her head bathed in sunshine, with a crown of twelve stars. It was sought to veil the symbols pictorially by distributing them in a landscape presenting somewhat the aspect of an English park. There was however one point on which the young master ventured to stand on his own legs. Amongst the elements indicated by Pacheco (ii., 189) one occurred which was not symbolic. “ Her personal beauty,” he wrote, “ was a marvel.” Such is easily painted in poetry, but not to the eye, which is less credulous than the ear. Thus the mystery came within the province of the idealists, and in fact those Romanists had contemplated an ideal, although scarcely detected in their productions. This empty idealism Velazquez found it impossible to adopt. He could work only on models, and would have had difficulty in understanding how Nature was to be improved upon. He chose a maiden from the people, a child probably of poverty, one who may have regarded this occupation as a pious work. Only one is unable here to recognize the “ sweet girlish face ” spoken of by Mrs. Jameson, who has fully described the picture. “The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face is very striking, the more so that it is not a beautiful face.” 1 It is really quite a commonplace, colourless physiognomy, with low forehead, high cheek-bones, receding chin, the downcast glance riveted to the spot on which the artist told her to fix her eyes. The black hair alone has been made of a golden colour (color de oro) as a concession to precedent, while against precedent the robe is not white, but a light violet, badly harmonizing with the blue mantle. He had in fact transformed some moza de venta to a Queen of Heaven. Similar models, but prettier and more national, were also chosen for his pious women by Diego’s contemporary Francisco Zurbaran, an artist of kindred sentiment. They are comely, somewhat narrow little heads, with black eyes, which however tell us nothing except their limited range of thought and feeling. That such a jejune and empty form, without nobility, grandeur, beauty or animation could be produced in those days of fervent Mariolatry was due not alone to the painter’s youth, or to his lack of capacity for religious Art. Even pious enthusiasm alone is unable to breathe a single spark of life into pictorial representations, any more than into poetry, as shown by the above-quoted wretched quatrain from Miguel Cid. 1 Legends of the Madonna , p. 49. 78 Velazquez. The heavenly and earthly background is now quite decayed and effaced, owing to the ground colour working through. In the second picture also the artist conforms closely to tradition. John the Evangelist in connection with this vision had been represented in mediaeval art as a venerable old man, as he was still painted by Memlinc, but in the sixteenth century as a curly-haired youth. The island of Patmos supplied the motive for a rich wooded landscape. This is seen in the painting of Martin de Vos, widely known by several copperplates, such as that of Jan Sadeler, and engraved also by Italians. As in this plate, John in our canvas also is seated to the right at the margin of the picture. His left hand lies on the open book, but with the index finger raised in attention ; the uplifted right holds a pen. Head and glance are turned back and upward to the clouds where is seen the seven-headed dragon, who in pur- suit of the sun-clad woman sweeps the stars from the firmament with his upcurled tail. As in the picture of the Woman, here also Velazquez has chosen a model for the chief figure— a young man with the hard sensuous features of the “ Dark Continent;” low narrow forehead under short-cut black hair, thick eyebrows also black, strong jaws, full red lips showing irregular teeth, small dark beard. Thus our Sevillan goes even farther than Caravaggio, who at all events always chooses well-bred models ; farther than Ribera, whose types are at least always of powerful build. To this stripling Diego has given a coarse white tunic, and thrown a violet mantle over his shoulders. The hand known from the foregoing and the following abundantly authenticated works here already reveals its characteristic manner. With broad, full brush the outline and modelling, for instance, of the extremities, are executed with perfect firmness of touch. It is noteworth}' that the hitherto employed thin draperies, falling in sharp straight parallel or broken lines, are already exchanged for stout fabrics, which fall in broad, heavy folds. The Epiphany. (2-03 x 1 -25 metres.) This is the work that in the Prado Gallery first reveals the master (No. 1054). It bears the date 1619, but whence it reached the royal collection is unknown. Compared with his first productions it is distin- guished by great power of colouring and chiaroscuro. The former is pasty and of dull, almost sombre tone, dark green and steel blue contrasting with his favourite yellow and orange ; the Virgin’s red robe has a crimson tint The Epiphany. 79 merging in violet. The shades, undoubtedly due partly to time, are darker than any occurring in subsequent works. The types, all portraits, have been carefully selected for their several parts. The draperies, especially the mantle, are treated in the substantial manner of the Water-Carrier, and THE EPIPHANY. the page behind the Ethiopian king has quite the pose and expression of the youth in the same work. It is conceived as a night scene, the cold yellowish light of early morning just dawning on the horizon. On Mary, seated on a somewhat elevated 8o Velazquez. platform to the right, there falls a sharp light, which is strongly reflected by the snow-white linen toca and cape of the Child. The subordinate position of the worshippers is emphasized by their position turned from the source of light, as shown by the shadows on their faces. The Madonna is of a more beautiful type than in that first essay — a full- blood pretty peasant woman of contracted intellect, but still a genuine Spaniard, with nobly curved nose and narrow plaited black hair on the temples ; but the dark downcast lashes betray none of the charm that Roelas still gave to such soft modest eyes ; nor has her glance any trace of a mother’s joy, and one fancies one has seen such a figure thus seated of a morning in the vegetable market of some little provincial town. The richly folded thick robe is a winter gown in harmony with the season ; the hands are bony, strong enough to guide the plough, and, if needs be, to seize the bullock by the horns. With both she holds the Child erect, quite an ordinary child in swaddling clothes, in accordance with the injunction of Pacheco, who never could endure the sight of the newborn babe exposed naked to the winter night. The St. Joseph to the right looking forward with an air of curiosity also presents the hard forbidding profile of a peasant. Had anyone reproached the artist with these lowly types of his Holy Family, he could probably have replied with Michael Angelo that these holy persons were poor and lowly. But had anyone maintained his incompetence to handle elevated types he might have pointed to the two kneeling kings. Here we see at once that he is in his element. These are, strictly speaking, his earliest authenticated portraits, in their treatment completely correspond- ing with the dark man with ruff in the Prado (No. 1103), if he did not actually sit for one of the two. Since the time of Campana no such portraits had been seen in Seville. The younger in front, a somewhat stout figure, might well represent a dean or archdeacon of the old stock ; the old man behind the general of some religious order. The Ethiopian also is a prince after his kind. As their lineaments are those of genuine hidalgos, their devotion also reflects the dignity, the passionless, almost gloomy phlegm of the high-born Spaniard. The composition is pressed quite forward, probably to secure space for such large figures ; even so those to the extreme right and left are inter- sected by the frame, which is made to appear too narrow. And as the Madonna is made to stand out well in front by the unsoftened glaring light, in the same way the king in front looks as if he were intruding into the scene from without. In the lithographed copy in the gallery the picture is wider, and the side figures continued farther to the right and left. Has the original been cut ? The Shepherds. 8i The Shepherds. (91 x 66 inches.) Probably those figures chosen by our young artist to personate St. John and the Virgin may not have greatly delighted people long accustomed to associate holy persons with elevated form and expression. He may at last have felt the need of a guide, who combined similarity of artistic views with a certain reputation in the treatment of religious subjects. Such a guide he found in Jusepe Ribera, whom, if he did not actually acquire from him his “ naturalism,” he at all events for once at least took as a prototype. This is shown by the appearance of types quite peculiar to the Valencian in the Adoration of the Shepherds, remarkable as the only work in which Velazquez con- descends to imitation. This work, the authenticity of which was formerly questioned, was bought for £4,800 by Baron Taylor from the Conde del Aguila, in whose palace it had always been. In 1853 it passed from Louis Philippe’s Spanish collection to the London National Gallery (No. 253) for £2,050. Mary, seated on the left, uncovers the Child for the shepherds, all eyes, Joseph’s included, being centred on the crib within a narrow radius. A girl with a basket of doves approaches in the twilight from a door, while quite to the right a lad plays on the flute. Although this was also a night scene, and although the elements were suggestive of low models, nevertheless the types are here somewhat more refined than in the Adoration of the Kings. The impasto is thinner, the colouring richer and brighter, the shades clearer and more coloured, the expression more animated, the types of the Holy Family nobler, the compo- sition more artistic and better rounded off in the background. To the left stands the shaft of a large column with ornamental pedestal. The intention of doing something special is also evident from the uniform care bestowed on the execution. With no other work has he apparently taken so much pains, and it certainly gives a good idea of the many-sided thoroughness insisted upon in his father-in-law’s studio. Yet there is nothing tiresome, nor any hesitation. Sassoferrato himself could not have modelled the face and hands of the Madonna in more delicately blended transitions. His studies of low life are also evident enough in the bread-basket, the bundle of straw, the fowl, the sheepskin, the lamb bound by the legs, all of which no one at that time could have so depicted. The trim peasant girl with the doves on her head reminds one of Berchem. When Stirling-Maxwell suggests that such figures might have been 6 82 Velazquez. modelled on the gypsies of the Triana we cannot entirely agree with him. This shepherd group is not taken from life, but literally from Spagnoletto ; hence Richard Ford called the painting itself a copy of Ribera. The noble figure of Joseph wrapped in his brown mantle, with calm downcast look, the genial old woman, the youth with the scrofulous mouth (often repeated in Ribera’s John the Baptist), the fluteplayer with his roguish smile (a reminiscence of his early years in Parma), all this is foreign to Seville, but was at all times familiar enough to Ribera. The Madonna alone is peculiarly his own. Here the intention is most evident of raising her high above the surroundings. The features have more elevation and fulness than the foregoing, which however may still be preferred by many. She is a well-shaped, healthy woman in the bloom of life, with larger and fuller oval face, and delicate skin. The smooth, white hands with flowing lines rounded off without wrinkles or knuckles are obviously intended to contrast with the awkward, wrinkled red coarse hands of the shepherds, the withered yellow one of the old woman, the strong boyish ones of the youth. For these hands he had apparently four different models. Byron was not the first to recognize in the hands a test of aristocratic blood. Yet precisely in the Madonna Velazquez failed to understand his prototype. Ribera had very frequently painted the shepherds after the manner of Correggio (1630); in a very pure and noble style in the Seo picture, Valencia (1634); in the Escorial, and again shortly before his death (1650), now in the Louvre. Here he introduces us to a rude race of shepherds from the neighbouring Abruzzi, broad stalwart sons of Nature in sheepskin coats. His Mary belongs to quite another stock, as appears not alone in the fine lines of her features. In the very act of exhibiting the Child to the shepherds a thought, incomprehensible to them, flashes across her mind, transporting her far from the present, as indicated by that still ecstatic upward glance of her large dark eyes. The Valencian, constitutionally even a more uncompromising realist than the Sevillan, had been warmed by the ideal sun of Italy. In Velazquez’ Madonna we miss this trait. This handsome, stately matron still remains the practical carpenter’s wife. Accustomed to live absorbed in her domestic duties, here also she has no thought bej^ond the immediate present. She carefully wraps the child, as if dreading the cold, the while casting a sharp and somewhat embarrassed glance (the corners of the mouth contracted) towards the peasants pressing forward with their animals. New- born heirs to a throne are thus exhibited to those officially entitled to be present. She does not even do it gracefully, as seen in the sharp angle of the elbow ! But although a mechanic's wife, she is still superior to these Velazquez’ Journeys to Court. 83 rude campagnuoli , in whose presence she cannot give way to her over- flowing motherly joy. But on the very night of the Nativity how can she uncover the Child without giving him a fond glance ? Correggio felt the difficulty. Here the impression of an ordinary visit to a young mother is completed by the accurately depicted babe in swathing clothes, anyhow this time comfortably tucked in with his pretty but still quite stupid little head and lovely gold curls. Surely we here touch the lowest depths of realistic crudity in the representation of the Nativity. By the side of this Spanish prose the last Academicians, a Mengs or a Rotari, are composers of hymns, if somewhat of the phrasemonger order. In the presence of youthful productions how often we fail to understand that in his first essays an artist is frequently most unlike himself! When this Adoration of the Shepherds was in the Louvre, from Madrid came the warning voice “ that no connoisseur would attribute this work to the Master ; it must rather be an early Zurbaran, and not even a good specimen of him.” 1 The painting is now impaired by varnish ; the red parts have become dull and flat, as we see in the ox thrust in between Mary and the shepherds. What specially interested the painter in these two chief religious pieces of his youthful period seems to have been their character as nocturnal subjects. The surrounding night and sharply projected shadows might suggest some artificial source of light ; but for such the tone of the light is too white and cold, the colouring in the shaded parts too thick-laid, while in the light it pales. The crowding forward of the figures also, excluding all softening of contrast by an atmospheric medium, seems to imply that he was concerned only with the plastique, employing the most vigorous methods, even at the risk of probability. The Two Journeys to the Court. After the completion of his five years’ apprenticeship with Pacheco (1613-18) Diego had formed even closer relations with his master. Pacheco had a daughter, apparently an only one, Juana de Miranda, and it occurred to him that the opportunity should not be lost of entrusting her future to such a well-conducted young man, so full of promise and well connected. “ After five years of education and training I married him to my daughter, induced by his youth, integrity and good qualities and the prospects of his great natural genius” (i., 134). The nuptials took place on April 23, 1618, in St. Miguel, the same year on the first day of which 1 Correo Nacional , June 28, 1838. 8 4 Velazquez. Murillo was christened in St. Magdalen’s Parish Church, Seville. Amongst the witnesses occurs the name of the poet and licenciate Francisco de Rioja. The issue of this union were two daughters, both born in Seville, Francisca christened on May 18, 1619, and Ignacia on January 19, 1621. Sponsor for the latter was Juan Velazquez de Silva. Such a connection was scarcely calculated to inspire any thoughts of vaulting ambition in the young man now in his nineteenth year, and possessed of no independent means. During those early days of domestic bliss his dreams of future greatness probably conjured up nothing higher than the career of a provincial artist. Yet when we consider those extant productions of his first four or five years’ industry in his native town, it becomes difficult to escape from the impression that, however applauded they might be for novelty of style and their genuine national stamp, still the question must have pressed itself on the young artist, whether the Fates had nothing better in store for him than to keep executing such works for the next fifty years or so, works in which after all subject and representation scarcely harmonized very well together. Then occurred an event well calculated to suggest new plans for the future. All restless and aspiring spirits were excited to the utmost by the unexpected death of Philip III. (March 31, 1621), and the sudden change of officials and administrative system on the accession of his son Philip IV., then in his fifteenth year. All the current and often exaggerated reports of advancement and special favours conferred on Court painters from Titian, or rather Jan van Eyck, to A. Mor and Sanchez Coello, now acted as a powerful inducement to try his fortune in this direction. The road to financial and political bankruptcy has rarely been paved with so many good intentions as under this new administration. The despatches of the envoys all at first echoed the general impression expressed in the words of the Mantuan Bonatti : “ Such are the revolutions brought about by this death that one may exclaim, Mondo nuovo ! " The crown prince, whose quick and early developed intelligence was patent to all, had to the last been excluded by the Duke of Uceda from the Cabinet, and even in his private life had been subjected to irksome control. His pent-up feelings of resentment at the influence of the favourite Lerma assumed a very decided form when he had to hear how his dying father bitterly reproached himself for his government, or, rather, non-govern- ment, and remonstrated with his Confessor for having deceived himself and his king. Presently an all-devouring storm of royal indignation burst upon this Derma and all his following. The young monarch declared that he intended 85 Velazquez’ Journeys to Court. to reign as a sovereign, that he required ministers and servants, not favourites and revellers. He insisted on reading all despatches ; he claimed the exclu- sive right of election ; he was the fountain of all honours and favours, to be conferred on the deserving. His application to business caused amazement ; the time of audience he fixed at a much earlier hour, and listened to all without distinction and with rare patience. Less enthusiasm was excited by his bellicose spirit. He asked — Were the Dutch not his subjects? Were they not rebels? Were they not heretics? With such there could be no peace ; he would pledge his own plate ; take part himself in the campaign. To those reminding him of the political wisdom of Philip II. he answered : “ I will have the piety of my father, the statesmanship of my grandfather, the warlike spirit of my great-grand- father. A junta of censors was instituted for the reform of public morals. The Padre Florentia, author of A Treatise on the Administration of State Affairs through Favourites , exclaimed in a sermon: “Spain and the world are redeemed.” In Seville especially many may have at that time been filled with hopes. The Conde de Olivares, the young king’s gentilhombre de cdmara, had resided in Seville, where his father had already been alcaide to the alcazar. He had made his house a rendezvous of poets and scholars, had even himself composed verses, which he now burnt. Amongst those noticed by him was our painter’s friend, Francisco de Rioja. On his return three years later to Andalusia, with the king, Olivares took him to the Court, and since then, during his long administration, Rioja had stood by his side a devoted servant and his right hand in all weighty and less serious matters, at one time using his pen against the Catalonian rebels, at another acting as umpire at a poetical competition in Buen Retiro (1637). Later, disenchanted with Court and the world, Rioja returned to Seville, “ where the climate is more human and brighter.” Here entering holy orders he became a cathedral prebendary and inquisitor. But for posterity his name recalls only the memory of some of the most fluent and mellifluous poems of the times. Amongst them are love ditties in Herrera’s Italian manner, and an Epistle , in which, with the genuine feeling of personal experience, he sadly reflects on the years which he “passed in the old resorts of vice, as the augur of a favourite’s whims.” Here he calls Court expectations the “dungeon where ambition dies and the hair of the wisest turns grey,” At that time Rioja was residing near St. Clemente, close to a beautiful garden, which was celebrated in verse by Lope when entertained by him in 1621. Rioja was himself a kindred spirit and friend of Pacheco’s, who has preserved in the Art of Painting several of his poems, as well as a Discourse 86 Velazquez. on the Four Nails. This intimate friend, who had soon followed Velazquez to Madrid, may have pronounced the decisive word in the consultation on the important step now being taken. It may be supposed that the father-in-law, a man so widely connected in influential circles, was not sparing with introductions to Sevillans already attached to the Court. Amongst those who gave the young artist a friendly welcome in Madrid he mentions the brothers Don Luis and Don Melchor del Alcazar, of whom little further is known, although belonging to a family which produced several celebrities in the sixteenth century. They are not, however to be confounded with two of like name, who are often referred to in the Art of Painting , and whose biographies are given in the Book of Portraits. Melchor del Alcazar, born in 1 502, was a distinguished jurist, whose good style attracted the attention of Philip II., and his brother was the epigram- matist Balthasar. The eldest of Melchor’s seven sons was the learned Jesuit Luis del Alcazar, who died in 1613. But of the Melchor here in question we know nothing beyond the fact that he also was a poet, who died in his thirty-seventh year in Madrid (1625). Pacheco has rescued from oblivion one of his poems dealing with the anecdote of Zeuxis and the five maidens who served as models for his Helen. Of great service to Velazquez was the introduction to the influential Sevillan Don Juan de Fonseca y Figueroa (ob. 1627), canon and maestro dc escucla at the cathedral, and who also held the important office of sumillerde cortina, in the king’s household. The position had been filled by several clergymen, who had to look after the prayer-books, to instruct the weekly chaplain as to the hour of celebrating Mass, to accompany the king to the chapel and stand by the balda- chin , raising and drawing the curtain at the proper times. But although of a purely ceremonious character, this office, owing to the influence it commanded, was entrusted only to persons of distinction; in the case of Geronimo Colonna it was a stepping-stone to the cardinalate. Figueroa afterwards entered the diplomatic service, and was sent that very year to felicitate the young Duke of Parma, the secret object of the mission being to win over the Italian princes to the Spanish side, especially in connection with the question of the Valtel- lina, and to remove any anxiety regarding the plans and intentions of the Spanish Government. He was a friend of painters, and he even painted himself, amongst other things, a portrait of Francisco de Rioja. Steps were taken to procure the young artist an introduction to the king, as the simplest means of rapid advancement. But on this occasion the efforts of Velazquez’ patrons ended in failure. Meanwhile at the request of Pacheco he painted the portrait of the poet Luis de Gongora, which was probably needed for the portrait galler}'. Velazquez at Court. 87 The work was much praised in the capital ; but whether it is the same that now hangs in the Prado (No. 1085) is doubtful. This is a well drawn, but dry and meagrely painted head, injured and showing few characteristic marks of his manner at that period. Although a prebendary of the Cathedral of Cordova, Gongora, n^w in his sixtieth year, had been residing for thirty years at the Court, but hitherto with little advancement beyond a capellania de honor procured for him by Lerma. Yet he was the Marini of Spain, and gives his name to the inflated ( culto ) style of the period. The portrait is a character study of the first order, suggestive rather of a casuist or penitenciario than of a poet — a long- head with powerful cranial development, high arched forehead now quite bald, long hooked nose very prominent at the root, serious closed mouth with a soured expression in the corners drawn downwards, thin mustachio, long projecting chin curving round to the nose. No one will look for grace or simplicity in these heavy, stern features, with the suspicious searching glance of the blinking eyes overcast with the furrows of serious mental work. Such traits, however, may accord with the satirist and erotic poet, or the inflated imagery and labjurinthine play of thought of the current euphuism. There also seems to be an air of depression, the result of the long deferred expectations of Court favour endured by this “ New Seneca,” as Lope calls him. 1 Meanwhile Fonseca did not lose sight of his young friend’s interests. Probably immediately after his return from the Italian mission he again broached the subject to Olivares, and in the spring of 1623 came a letter from Fonseca, inviting Diego at the Minister’s request to return to Madrid. A sum of fifty ducats was granted for the travelling expenses, whereupon the father-in-law shut up house, and accompanied him, ‘‘ in order to witness the renown ” which he anticipated. He resided and boarded in Figueroa’s house. In the same year a boy in his tenth year also came to the capital with his father, the Alcalde of Abiles in Asturia ; he wanted to be a painter, and was confided to the care of the then popular Pedro de las Cuevas. Forty years later this artist, Juan Carreno de Miranda, succeeded to the honours of Velazquez. Our artist painted the portrait of his patron Fonseca, which has 1 There is a good replica in England. Edward Charton’s interesting book on Gongora (London : 1862) has an excellent engraving from this replica, which at that time belonged to Mr. Henry Reeve. It was said to have passed from Sir W. Hamilton's collection in Naples to the Art writer Ottley, and was then sold as the portrait of Gondomar. It agrees exactly with the Madrid picture. 88 Velazquez. disappeared. The very evening of the day on which-it was finished, the young Count Penaranda, chamberlain to the Infante Don Ferdinand, carried it off with him to the palace. Here “ in one hour it was seen by everybody,” the prince and the king included, “a rare recognition.” It was decided that Diego should paint Don Ferdinand, but eventually it seemed more desirable first to paint the king himself. This commission however was deferred owing to the weighty matters then occupying the king. These grandes ocupaciones had reference probably to the visit of Charles Prince of Wales. At last on August 30 the king found time to sit for a life-size equestrian portrait, which met with the approval of his Majesty, the Infante and Olivares, the latter declaring in his emphatic way that the king had not till then been painted at all. “ His Excellency the Count-Duke [Olivares] had now a first interview with him, and raised high his hopes, reminding him of the honour of his fatherland, and promising that he alone should paint his Majesty, and that all other portraits should be removed. He bade him bring his family to Madrid.” Thereupon Velazquez completed the picture, in which “ all was painted from Nature, even the landscape.” It was five ells high and about three-and- a-half wide. It was publicly exhibited in the Calle Mayor over against St. Felipe, “ to the admiration of the Capital, and envy of those of the profession, of which I can bear witness” ( Art of Painting, i., 134). Sonnets were composed on it by Pacheco and Juan Velez de Guevara, and a long encomium by the Sevillan, Geronimo Gonzalez de Villanueva. Later, when it was eclipsed by other equestrian pictures by Rubens and by Diego himself, this work seems to have been little more thought of, and least of all by the latter, who could no longer appreciate the somewhat dry and hard style of his first essays. In 1686 we find it removed from the royal apartments to the Court marshal’s official residence ( aposentador de palacio), in the Treasury, and deprived of its frame. Afterwards no more is heard of it, and it probably perished in the fire of 1734. One would willingly sacrifice many later portraits of the king to recover this work. The Appointment. . His reception into the king’s service followed in the same year 1623, with a monthly stipend of twenty ducats from the funds of the royal palaces. Physician, chemist and surgeon were also included, and according to Pacheco special payment was promised for each separate work. He further soon received three hundred ducats to defray expenses, besides a pension of another three hundred from an ecclesiastical living, for which however the Velazquez’ Appointment, 89 necessary dispensation was not obtained from Pope Urban VIII. till 1626. His residence in the city was valued at two hundred ducats, and provision was also made for his father, who within seven years received three secre- taryships, each yielding one thousand ducats. The studio ( obrador ) of the Court painters stood on the ground floor of the palace in the prince’s quarters. Compared with allowances hitherto made to Court painters, the sums awarded to Diego were considerable ; E. Caxesi had received only fifty thousand maravedis, say £i$, and Gonzalez not more than six thousand maravedis yearly. Our artist, still in his twenty-fourth year, had already reached his goal ; he had been received into the remarkable if somewhat motley series of portrait painters to the Spanish Court. Amongst his predecessors he saw some great names, but they had been Italians and Netherlanders, in whose company the Spaniards cut rather a sorry figure. Charles V. had compared Titian to Apelles, Court painter to Alexander the Great ; others had caught only his pale, ill-formed, icy mask, but Titian had breathed some life into it, depicting the coolness of the captain on the battlefield, the penetrating shrewdness of the greatest statesman of the age, the Olympian impertur- bability of the master of two worlds. Philip II. had constantly employed the painter of Cadore, who, however, had seen him only as crown prince at Augsburg ; hence the portrait painted after the battle of Lepanto (1572) was a fanciful blend of youth and age. The true pictorial chroniclers of his Court were Anton Mor and Alonso Sanchez Coello, the former of whom, although almost free from Italian influences, had something of the free breath, dignity, and grace of Venetian portraiture. He was a cavalier of the true Spanish type, and conversed so familiarly with the otherwise almost inaccessible monarch that he awakened the suspicions of the Inquisition. His cooler tone, his infinite minuteness in the details of the costumes, well suited the formal and pomp-loving court. Three several times he was invited, once to London, to paint Philip’s bride ; he has also left us that king’s sisters and the Court beauties, and nothing gives us a higher idea of his delicacy and manifold treatment of character than these lifelike portraits now in the Prado. The Portuguese Sanchez Coello, respecting whose influence at Court incredible things were related in the legends of the painters, was in reality a poor hanger-on and a somewhat characterless artist. At first he adhered closely to Mor, from whom his portraits are not readily distinguished without some experience, only they lack animation and individuality. He then took to a Venetian manner, and his heads have occasionally passed for Venetian ; yet these are less valuable than others in which he affects a Dutch style. 90 Velazquez. His pupil Pantoja de la Cruz was the soulless and lifeless, the painfully laborious and stiff royal painter to the Court of the weak-headed Philip III. For the period he was a sort of anachronism (ob. 1610), and was followed (1617) by Bartolome Gonzalez, one of the three colleagues whom Velazquez found installed at the time of his appointment. Latterly Gonzalez had again painted the family of Philip III. in a series of eleven large full-figure portraits for the Pardo palace. He bears the same relation to his prede- cessor that the latter did to Coello and Coello to Mor, marking in Court portraiture the same downward course that in other respects was indicated by the royal originals themselves. Philip IV. was no better, but only a more ill-starred ruler than his father; still the revival of the national life drew to the Court the greatest portrait painter of Spanish blood, one who has since been rivalled by Goya alone. Carreno and Del Mazo, Court painters to the last shadow king of the Habsburg line, were themselves but a shadow of Velazquez. The present monarch kept up the custom of extreme familiarity with his painters, the precedent for which had been established by his sinister grandfather. He had at all times access through the secret pas- sage to the atelier , even in the absence of the artist, for he had pro- vided himself with skeleton keys for every room in the palace. One day, the Florentine Bernardo Monanni tells us, his fellow-countryman Cosimo Lotti, also engaged in the Treasury, found all his things so displaced that although an engineer he could no longer find his bearings. He opened a little box and noticed that half of his Florentines ausage ( salsicciotto ) had been cut off, and by its side the royal autograph : La mitad para nosotros tomamos, la otra por limosna os la dexamos. Yo el Rey } In Velazquez’s studio was a chair reserved for his Majesty, that he might look on comfortably, and in fact he came almost every day. “ Scarcely credible ” seemed to the aged Pacheco such friendliness and affability, with which so great a monarch treated him. But this constant presence of the king could not fail to influence his style, for, says Martinez, lords look more to despatch than to good workmanship. When visiting his painters Philip II. for the most part found that they were making far too little progress. As the great maxim of Spanish royalty was to do as their predecessors and especially the emperor had done, such relations were regarded as the fulfilment of a ruler's duty, who should in all things resemble his forefathers. And we see how the same anecdotes constantly recur. Half we take for ourselves , the other we leave you for charity. I the King. Madrid. 9 1 Madrid. Velazquez became and remained till his death a citizen ( vecino ) of Madrid. As a servant of the king he received besides his stipend a free residence. He had his studio, of course, in the palace itself (east wing), and later as palace marshal an official residence in the Casa del Tesoro (Treasury) abutting eastwards on the Alcazar ; but his private dwelling was in the city. The house which he occupied at all events in his fortieth year stood in the Calle de Concepcion Geronima, and belonged to one Pedro de Yta. When Philip II. conferred such unusual privileges on householders to encourage architectural activity, he reserved to the crown free control over the second floor of every house ; hence the large number of one-storied buildings in Madrid. Such second stories he would lend to his courtiers and officials, to the members of his council, or of embassies and the like. The name of that street still exists ; it runs off the Calle de Toledo, in the heart of mediaeval Madrid, and takes its title from the Hieronymite Nunnery, founded by Doha Beatriz Galindo, called La Latina, in the year 1 504. On either side of the high altar are seen the marble monuments in the Renaissance style erected to her memory, and that of her husband Francisco Ramirez. The facade of the convent, in the late Gothic style of the “ Catholic Kings,” noteworthy as the only interesting work of the kind, was erected by a Moorish architect, the neophyte Hazan. The painter's way to the palace lay through the Plaza Mayor lately opened by Philip III., and thence by the Calle Mayor to the Plaza del Palacio. This Calle was the great artery, the favourite resort of fashionable society, gallants, fair ladies and adventurers of all kinds. Here, says Alarcon, the Sevillans themselves forgot their Alameda, here was the India of the old world, that is, a reversed India, where fortunes were rapidly — lost. The Madrid of Velazquez’ time has undergone no essential change, as is evident from a glance at the great plan of the place prepared in Antwerp ; only new quarters have sprung up round about the central core. Even at that time the Puerta del Sol was already called the “Ombligo de la Corte,” and the Prado was the evening promenade of select society. This Madrid was a creation of Philip II., begun in 1561. Till then it had been a small mediaeval town, finally rescued in 1083 from the Moors, who had held it as an outpost of Toledo. But the transformation now proceeded with giant strides. In Pedro de Medina’s description for 1548, when the royal palace was building, one page is devoted to Madrid, but in the second edition of that work ( 1 595 ) seven additional pages are added. 92 Velazquez. For its good fortune Madrid was indebted to its salubrious climate alone. On his first visit Charles V. had felt the beneficial effects of the pure dry atmosphere of the breezy table-land on his gouty constitution, and thereupon resolved to take up his residence there. This atmosphere, to which Madrid is said to owe its Arabic name, was tempered by the winds from the Guadarrama range, and still more by the extensive woodlands of the sur- rounding district. In the sixteenth century it was chosen as a summer residence and health resort ; at present its climate is the least salubrious of any in Spain. This is mainly due to the destruction of the forests, which had already disappeared in the time of Philip IV. In 1640 fuel had become so scarce that orders had to be issued for replanting, especially the riverain tracts, and had given rise to the saying that "the French think of the past, the Italians of the future, the Spaniards only of the present.” At first the houses were mostly built of mud, as we still see in the provincial towns of Castile, and with such utter neglect of sanitary conditions that Madrid had the reputation of being the filthiest city in Europe. Never- theless the nobles of Toledo and Valladolid gradually gravitated towards the new capital, where they built themselves residences, and thus attracted numerous retainers and artizans. But supplies “for man and beast” had to be brought from such distances that even under Philip II. living was already dearer than in Rome. After Philip III.'s temporary return to Valladolid, building was resumed with feverish haste under his successor. Strangers flocked thither ; many-storied houses were run up with balconies at all the windows, and let out in flats to families wholly unacquainted with each other; hence the remark that here one partition was farther from another than Valladolid from Ghent. In similar hyperbolic language the poets describe the rapid transformations going on all round, so that nothing seemed last- ing except change. " The great man, scarcely dead, is carried forth in the evening, and no one has time to throw a handful of earth on his grave.” Despite the lack of character in the architecture of modern Madrid, which possesses only one noteworthy church, the recently threatened St. Geronimo, the Spanish capital of the seventeenth century possessed at least a special charm in its cosmopolitan aspect. What first struck strangers was its per- fectly open condition, without walls, gates, or moats. The old enclosure with its hundred and thirty towers had gradually disappeared as the town expanded in all directions; hence Gongora compares it to the Nile, the one tolerating no confining banks for its flood-waters, the other no walls for its overflowing streets and houses. The growth of this upstart capital coincides with the time when Spain itself outgrew its. national and natural limits in its aspira- tions after a universal monarchy. A Court which sends its viceroys to Madrid. 93 Flanders, to Lombardy, Naples, Sicily, and America must necessarily acquire a cosmopolitan character. Tirso calls Madrid the “ Universal Mart,” the “ Mapamundi,” the “ whole world.” “ She is the home,” says Calderon, “ of all natives or strangers, who in her little world are equally beloved children.” The Spaniards, who dreamed of their land as the " Shelter and Sceptre of the Universe,” were proud of this “noble house of entertainment” to which all were welcome. The Madrilenos were described as gossiping, courteous and obliging, which caused surprise in a land where strangers were otherwise too often greeted with a volley of stones. The city on the Manzanares, despite the difficulty of access, had already become a kind of universal emporium, especially for all articles of luxury. Pessimist philosophers called it the New Babylon, where the clearest heads become confused amid the endless variety of tongues ; where vice breaks out like boils, and where those may think themselves lucky who get off scathless. Art Circles. Under such conditions there could be no lack of activity in the world of Art. A taste for the Arts, an intelligent appreciation and discussion of Art topics, had at that time already become a matter of tradition in Madrid. Nay, when we recall the Court of Philip II. and his counsellors, Granvella for instance, to mention only one name, we feel as if we have already entered on a period of decline. The cabinets and studios of the Italians Pompeo Leoni and Jacomo Trezzi from Milan, with their collections of coins, paintings, manuscripts, and “curios” of all sorts, were at one time included amongst the noteworthy objects which no stranger of rank could afford to neglect. And even after the two decades of “ suspended animation ” during the reign of the feeble Philip III., all this artistic intercourse soon again acquired some activity under his young successor Philip IV. In his Didlogos Vincenzo Carducho has preserved some valuable references to the contemporary dilettantism of Madrid. His book, which appeared in 1633, but which must have been written somewhat earlier, might have acquired something more than a general interest, but for the excessive consideration and fear of stirring up jealousy which prevented him from specifying the particular paintings alluded to. Here also Italian influence is unmistakable. Many of the wealthy lovers of Art had been to Italy, while on the other hand, amongst the courtiers of Philip IV. were the two Italian artists, Crescenzi from Rome, and the 94 V ELAZQUEZ. Florentine sculptor Rutilio Gaxi, who had designed several of the Madrid fountains. Monterey and Leganes, both kinsmen of Olivares, had fitted up their palaces on a grand scale and with princely splendour. The latter, Spinola’s son-in-law, had reluctantly accepted high offices abroad, for his heart still clung to his Madrid residence with its 'rare clocks and mirrors, its secretaires and choice marqueterie work, paintings and other Art treasures. Count Monterey also (Don Emanuel de Fonseca y Zuniga) had taken ad- vantage of his position in Naples to make a rich collection of silver ware, gems, tapestry, paintings and other objects, such as the red-chalk pastel drawing of the cartoon of Michael Angelo’s Bathers. The taste of collectors also embraced armour, Venetian glass, cabinets, Flemish tapestry, medals, copperplates, illuminated breviaries, shrines, costly prints, ivory carvings, musical and mathematical instruments. Specially interesting is Carducho’s description of the circles and conversation of connoisseurs and patrons of Art. In a certain unnamed house they gathered of an evening to bespeak or exchange paintings, drawings, models, statues, therein displaying “ much taste and knowledge,” and appreciation of “originals by Raphael, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, Palma, Bassano,” and of living painters. Here assembled the best painters, as well as persons of condition who had a fancy for such refined entertainments. Besides paint- ings here were seen “ coats of mail and weapons of famous armourers, damascened daggers, rock crystal work, writing desks, pyramids and globes of jasper and glass.” The host, we are told, was on one occasion engaged in arranging some articles of exchange, about which he had made an appoint- ment with Don Juan Alfonso Enriquez de Cabrera, Admiral of Castile. They comprised an original by Titian, six heads by Anton Mor, two bronze statues and a small culverin, and the admiral had left with him a good copy of a Bacchanalian scene by Caracci. There was also seen a Madonna by Raphael from the Convent of the Barefooted Carmelite Nuns in Valladolid, that belonged to Monterey, and which he wanted to take with him and have restored in Italy. This was the Madonna della Rosa which still often turns up in Spain and in Valladolid (Prado, 370). Nor were other opportunities lacking in Madrid for procuring good specimens. Inventories with estimates were made of legacies, from which the family chose what it desired to retain, and exposed the rest for public sale with fixed prices attached to each article. Such sales took place even after the decease of royal persons, the largest on record being that of 1608, some years after the death of Philip IE (1598). An account of these almoncdas is given in the highly interesting diary of Count Harrach, who Art Circles in Madrid. 95 during the second half of the century was twice ambassador at the Spanish Court, and who mentions no less than twenty auctions, nearly all of the nobility, within the space of five years. Besides those who collected from motives of vanity, or in servile compliance with the fashion, there were also genuine virtuosi. Quevedo has left us a vivid description of Juan de Espina who, according to him, was the beau ideal of an Art patron, and moreover a true philosopher, displaying a refined taste and thorough knowledge, perseverance and tact in his researches, disregard of price (he had an income of five thousand ducats), an open house for artists and scholars. Often plunged in deep thought he passed for a magician, and as such even figured on the stage. “ For years his house was an epitome of the marvels of Europe, visited by strangers to the great honour of our nation, for they had often nothing to tell of Spain except their reminiscences of him.” The year of Velazquez’ removal to Madrid coincided with the visit of Charles Prince of Wales, who remained from March 7 till September 2. According to Lope de Vega he “ collected with remarkable zeal all the paint- ings that could be had, valuing and paying for them excessive prices.” He however failed to induce Espina to part with the gem of his collection, the two volumes of manuscript with drawings by Leonardo de Vinci. The owner had intended to bequeath them to the king ; but fourteen years later they were secured by the Earl of Arundel. They had originally come from the sale of the effects of Pompeo Leoni (ob. 1608) where Andres Velazquez had also procured a small Correggio a foot high — a Madonna and the Child with Joseph, painted on copper. The prince had in vain offered two thousand escudos ; but the king bought it himself and presented it to his royal guest. 1 At that time the Conde de Villamediana’s auction was still going on. This brilliant wit had at the instigation of the king been shot in his coach on August 21, 1622, it was uncertain whether on account of his satirical poems of unparalleled audacity and venom, or of his rash gallantries with the young queen. He had been six years in Naples and Florence, whence he had brought back paintings, arms and antiques. At the departure from Madrid of Fernando de Azevedo, the newly appointed Archbishop of Burgos, Villa- mediana gave him a Titian worth a thousand escudos, “ in order to remember him in Burgos.” The prince often visited Don Geronimo Fures y Munoz, in order to see his cabinet and original drawings by the great Italians ; from him Charles received 1 Khevenhiller, Annates Fcrd. X 333. In a MS. in the British Museum, Observations concerning pictures paintings in England , 1650 and frequently in the portraits of Gerhard Terburg, which in many respects resemble Velazquez’ first style. A striking characteristic of all these portraits is the high visual point. While Titian took his sketches seated Velazquez worked standing, so that the lines of the usually light wooden floor stand well out, but being only roughly finished are unsatisfactory in their perspective. The figure seems to stand on tiptoe, and occasionally even to hover in the air. Yet the face, as with the Venetian painters, seems to lie above the visual point, so that the king stood probably on a platform. The Venetians had already intro- duced the low horizon, almost on a level with the feet, without however also drawing the face from this low visual point, as it would thus appear too much foreshortened. Such portraits certainly give a clear idea of his first manner ; but they seem scarcely to account for the enthusiasm of the public. This might rather I I 2 Velazquez. have been produced by the royal portrait now owned by Mr. Robert S. Holford of Dorchester House, which according to Curtis was purchased from Mr. Nieuwenhuys. But this authority must be at fault in suggesting that it may have been the picture bought by Mr. Nieuwenhuys at the Alton Towers sale of 1857, in which according to Passavant the king had a lion at his feet. 1 But it must have been produced soon after the foregoing. The young king, in whom the germ of the bigot seems already more developed, stands in a similar attitude, but completely equipped for the field, the commander’s baton in his right hand, his left resting on the hilt of the sword falling straight down. Above the chain armour, of which only a small portion shows below the neck, lies a yellow leather gorget ; there are also brown leather gauntlets, long tight leather boots with gold spurs, crimson gold-embroidered scarf with stiff projecting bow, gold-embroidered sleeves and broad knee-breeches. On the table lies the light grey felt hat with partridge plume, wide band and a large pearl. Had he to portray a warlike king the artist could scarcely have conceived a more appropriate figure. He seems ready to spring into the saddle and place himself at the head of his brave Castilians, and in fact during these first years he was continually expressing his determination to follow in the foot- steps of Charles V. in the war against France, and leave the administration to his brother. On the slender support of the legs the figure expands in its mantle like the crown of a pine-cone. The head with its resolute side-glance is somewhat more spirited, and the whole has a certain martial air combined with a Spanish stiffness, which doubtless pleased as much as grace and animation elsewhere. The pictorial effect is also novel. The bright figure with its many yellow leather patches stands well out from the background of a deep warm asphalt-brown colour. The face with its pale forms sharply accentuated by shaded lines has decidedly the brightest tone, while the requisite wealth of colour is imparted by the crimson and gold-embroidered parts. The right arm with the staff receives the greatest prominence through the shadows accumulated round about. The picture has something of a Titian air despite the hardness which the artist has not yet overcome. Soon after was probably executed the portrait of the king’s brother Don Carlos, his junior by two years, and then about twenty years old (Prado, No. 1073 ; 1*91 x rc>3 m.). Don Carlos, born in Madrid on September 14, 1607, resembles his brother, only the lower jaw is better rounded and the eyes smaller. The features differ in expression from the Rubens portrait, which however is known only from Peter de Jode’s engraving — a spirited profile t 1 Tour of a Germa?i A rtist , ii., 80. Olivares. 1 r 3 with sharp lines, more closely resembling the emperor than all his other descendants. This prince, who died in his twenty-fifth year, is described by con- temporaries as the most energetic of the three brothers, clever, lively, and even passionate. But he was entirely excluded from public affairs by Olivares, who even prevented his marriage, fearing the influence of a foreign princess. Here the figure, in a black silk Court costume with bronze countenance, stands dimly out frcm the rusty brown ground, with smooth wavy and curled hair, finely modelled right hand carelessly dangling a glove, the left concealed and holding a large hat opening outward. There is a dash of contempt in the play of the muscles round the mouth, and we know that with his grave impenetrable demeanour he nonplussed even the Italian diplomatists. He died in July 1632 of a fever, which according to Zuan Corner he caught after an altercation with Olivares. Even worse was suspected, and Capecelatro tells us that on his deathbed he warned the king from his “ evil advisers.” Olivares. Simultaneously with our artist’s removal to Madrid mention occurs of the minister's name, without whose lasting favour his position at Court and near the person of the king was not to be thought of. As Velazquez worked almost exclusively for Philip, and as Olivares, personally superintended the household affairs down to the arrangement of the costumes, we may reason- ably suppose that he had a hand in all the more important incidents of this artistic career. Very little however is known as to their mutual relations in particular cases. The Tuscan Averardo dei Medici writing in 1629 calls Velazquez the minister’s “ favourite.” It ma)' be presumed that, however unfavourably Olivares may have been judged in most other respects, the painter knew him only as a zealous patron and staunch friend, while Don Gaspar recognized in his young fellow-countryman not only a spirited artist and valued adviser in numerous projects, but also an honourable upright man. In love and hate alike extreme, he often did more for his friends than they had hoped of him. Nor could the painter readity forget that critical turning point in his career, when after submitting the proof of his capacity to the Court the count at once placed him at the head of all his rivals. His gratitude was shown later, after the fall of the minister. Don Gaspar Guzman, born in Rome in 1587, was the second son of Count Enrique, ambassador to Sixtus V., viceroy of Sicily and Naples, and alcaide (governor) of the alcazar in Seville. His mother was a Fonseca 8 H4 Velazquez. (Countess Monterey), while Don Pedro, the grandfather, a general under Charles V., was the first Count of Olivares. “He was born in Rome,” writes Khevenhiller, but his fatherland was Andalusia, and he was brought up at the Spanish Court, hence nalura, patria et educaiione beguiled from the right path.” He had been intended for the Church, and after completing his studies in Salamanca had received a commandery in the Calatrava Order. Then his elder brother died, whereupon he exchanged the “scholastic toga - ’ for cloak and sword, married his cousin, Ines de Zuniga, the “elderly” daughter of the Viceroy of Peru (1607), and in order to be near his estates, removed to Seville, where he resided many years, indulging freely in his natural taste for splendour and lavish display. In 1615 he was attracted to Madrid by the Duke of Lerma and appointed chamberlain to the prince, in this position gradually preparing the way to future confidence and ascendency. At the death of Philip III. he saw his chance, though at first making himself the young king’s right hand only in distractions, while his uncle Zuniga attended to more weighty matters. He successfully contrived to sow the seeds of discord between the king and queen, who had at first lived affectionately together. Then he passed rapidly from the position of a guide in lighter things to that of a serious adviser, and was by Philip made Duke of San Lucar, whence his title of “ Count-Duke.” He had already reached middle age without having meddled with State affairs, hence the amazement in Madrid at the report that this most jovial of Court cavaliers had turned politician. The presents customary under Lerma were strictly forbidden ; nobody denied that the favourite’s hands were clean. But on the other hand he substituted for his predecessor’s obliging manners a hitherto unheard-of haughty, overbearing, abrupt demeanour, even towards persons of high birth, so that in those early years he already drew down upon himself the universal hatred, followed by a general clamour for his removal from the Court. Who could have foreseen at that time that he would have held his ground for fully two-and-twenty years longer ? No minister has been made the butt of so many squibs and pasquinades. “ All wished him dead ; ” nay they wished the king himself dead, in order to be rid of his minister, who since the decease of Zuniga (October 1622) had remained without a rival. Early in that year he had already secured possession of the royal signet-ring, thanks to which the ante-chamber was soon cleared. On one occasion the king expressing his surprise at the appear- ance of two solitary suppliants, the ayuda de camara led him to a window and pointed to the throng streaming up and down in front of Olivares’ apart - ments. In order to give the young sovereign an overwhelming idea of the Olivares. 05 magnitude of State cares he often presented himself laden with official documents, a wreath of memorials stuck round his hat-band, confidential papers crammed into his bosom and girdle ; and when he went abroad he never failed to provide himself with a goodly stock of books, charts and deeds of all kinds. Hence his Court nickname of El Espantcijo de los Reyes (“ the Scarecrow of Kings”). Nevertheless he left nothing undone to overtake arrears of work. He renounced amusements, kept a frugal board, lived plainly, toiled night and day, rose an hour before dawn, so that people wondered how he could stand the fatigue. He often received the envoys in bed, when resting from over- work or after a dose of medicine. Philip could no longer dispense with the presence of Don Gaspar, whose first and last visit was to the king. But while making a show of enthusiastic devotion, no one was more anxious to divert the attention of this crowned stripling from the administration than the old graduate of Salamanca, who in his thorny ministerial career still maintained intimate relations with intellectual persons like Quevedo and Gbngora. Numerous dedications bear his name, and his own large library he had transferred to his residence in the palace, which stood on the west side under the king’s apartments. After his fall the books were carted away in a hundred large boxes. The only presents people dared make him were works of Art and paintings. Rubens’ large decorative pictures in his Church at Loeches, now in Grosvenor House, were a gift from the king. Such was the statesman of whom it was said that through him the monarchy forfeited more lands than it had ever acquired through any conqueror ; defiant and unfortunate rival of Richelieu, whom he envied, dreaded, and in vain plotted to overthrow ; a favourite who ruled his sovereign, “ not as a minister but as the unrestrained controller of all State affairs ” (Voiture) ; one of those fateful men that their evil genius reserves for States on the decline. The pictures of him executed by Velazquez at the beginning and towards the close of his career rank amongst the foremost studies of character in modern portrait painting. This character was in a high degree labyrinthine. His quick and pene- trating grasp, his zeal, his resolution, have never been questioned. He doubtless himself believed that he acted only in the interest of his king, whom he named El Grande , anticipating what he fondly hoped to make him. In him the instinct of universal sway, with which Charles V. had inspired the nation, had -once more found embodiment. Still with men of this stamp such goals are inseparable from personal ambition. Velazquez. i 16 But he also lacked the political temperament, and it was apparently his misfortune that without proper training he found himself at the helm of the State. His brain was eccentric and fitful, untrustworthy, borracho (“ in- toxicated”), as he was called in a contemporary lampoon ; dazzled by novelty, without tact in the choice of his counsellors. At the outset of an enterprise he overrode all difficulties, and then lost his head at failures, to which as long as possible his eyes were closed. Then he wept, and had to be comforted by the king himself. And all this was combined with a blind obstinacy, with which he pursued the wrong course even amid the most threatening forebodings. He was gifted with a certain fluency of speech, highly coloured in the taste of the times, now sarcastic, now vehement, and he liked to hear himself talk, although his impetuous torrents of eloquence indicated an overwrought brain. What availed his constitutional mistrust of all mankind, his Macchia- vellian unscrupulousness in the choice of means, when he allowed himself to be carried away by his passions ? For a single word uttered by an envoy might suffice to heap extreme contempt and threats on his king, nation, or minister. He was sensitive and incapable of pardoning a joke ; devout and even of a gloomy superstitious nature, speaking of the world and mundane vanities like a Capuchin friar, and keeping in his chamber a coffin, into which he occasionally entered to the notes of a De Profundis. “ I envy,” he would exclaim, “the lot of the humblest palace sweeper!” In his character we fancy we see rising to the surface his early ecclesiastical training, for there is certainly a smack of priestcraft in his fondness for cabal and indirect ways, in his all-consuming love of sway and of revenge, in his long-winded tirades. He shrank from the shedding of blood, and he might after all have succeeded, had his policy not run counter to the under-current of the times. But his lines were thrown in the evil days when the tide of brief world-wide empire was ebbing fast, and Spain steadily subsiding within the natural limits of her mediaeval frontiers. Portraits of Olivares . — In the Madrid Museum, and so far as is known to me in all Spain, there is but one portrait of the count-duke by the master’s hand, and that belonging to the last period of his life. But can Velazquez have taken his patron once only in the course of two-and-twenty years ? Apart from the somewhat vain original himself, surely the great courtiers and even foreign princes must have occasionally bespoken a likeness of the dreaded statesman ! At the same time it is just as easy to under- stand that such portraits might have disappeared with his fall. For who would any longer endure the proximity of this hated sinister effigy ? However the fact is, that besides numerous contemporary easel-pieces and copies, Oi HVARES. 117 there still exist several undoubted originals abroad, as well as copper-plates of others now lost, but also by Velazquez. The extant pictures and engravings form two distinct groups. The first, not very numerous, represent him between the middle of his thirtieth and his fortieth year ; they are in the master’s first manner, and by far the more attractive. Here we have a grand head with strong but noble features, suggesting rather a condottiere of the Thirty Years’ War than the political intriguer fluent of speech and pen, and the superintendent of his Majesty’s lighter gaieties. Such features we might suppose were those of his renowned ancestor Guzman el Bueno, revived as it were in this unwarlike descendant of his stock. “ He is of handsome appearance,” says Khevenhiller, “ and looks like a Roman emperor.” Here are still the traces of that “ tall, hand- some cavalier, the most gallant man in the Court and the best horseman in Spain ” (Correr). We see him at the beginning of his career in the Dorchester House portrait, probably from the collection of the Altamira family, which inherited the title of Duke of San Lucar. This is the most important portrait in the earliest Sevillan style, and its authenticity has been doubted simpty because that style is otherwise unknown . 1 The peculiarities of figure and head acutely observed and finely expressed, the accuracy with which attitude, costume and insignia are reproduced, as thought out both by the artist and his subject, make it a biographical compendium painted with the caracte'ristique of a Mocenigo. On a light grey ground stands the stately figure turned three-quarters to to the left, all in black, his piercing side glance following the observer. The high forehead with its strongly marked bcsses (especially the central) is already surmounted by a wig. Nose bent downwards, narrow and somewhat contracted upper-lip, projecting chin (corresponding to the prominent occiput), short, square-cut beard, earnest expression, harmonizing with the long and wide black cloak, which hangs loosely and gracefully over the left shoulder, leaving the figure almost free. The firm right hand, resting on a table covered with red velvet, grasps an almost vertical riding-stick, or wand, badge of the Master of the Horse ( Caballerizo Mayor). This most influential of Court offices, formerly held by Ruy Gomez and Lerma, was the key to his ascendency over the sovereign. His left hand rests on the sword-belt concealed by the cloak, as is also the sword itself, 1 At Col. Hugh Baillie’s sale, 1858, it fetched ^598 xos. ; at Charles Scarisbrick’s, May, 1861, only ^262 10s. It is 85 inches high by 51 (Curtis, No. 171). It was in the Exhibition of the Old Masters of 1887, El Conde-Duque inscribed in the lower left corner. Velazquez. i 18 seen however in the silhouette of the cloak, which it causes to stand out behind. From the girdle peeps out the Lord Chamberlain’s gold key ; a bandolier worked with gold leaves crosses the breast, while the green cross of the Order of Alcantara is attached to doublet and cloak. On the table lie the commander’s staff, and the hat with jewelled clasp. The self- conscious glance seems to say : Todo es mio — as he remarked to his pre- decessor Uceda about the time of Philip’s accesion. The treatment recalls the Shepherds in its firm but still hard drawing, execution with spare impasto, rounding of contours effected by broad light shading. The portrait seems like a significant pendant to that of Philip — on the one hand the hot-blooded, inexperienced, well-meaning youth, thinking only of his gallantries, sport, and theatricals ; on the other the crafty old fox, the whole pack giving tongue. The popularity of the work is shown by the still extant repetitions, such as that of Henry Huth, which had been purchased in 1853 Henry Farrar for £325 10s. 1 Another and earlier work, as shown by the absence of the wig, was the original of Paul Pontius’ splendid engraving, for which Rubens supplied the emblematic surroundings. According to Smith’s catalogue this engraving was made from a fine original in grisaille, evidently prepared by Velazquez for this purpose. In the first impression the beard reaches only to the golilla, while the hair is so thin that the scalp shows through. The bust is in armour with a crimson scarf across the left shoulder. The drawing is faithfully reproduced by Pontius ; but in the glow of the face surfaces and the vivid glance one recognizes the school of Rubens. By? the Latin verses on the socle we are also invited to honour the profound, earnest, honest statesman in this intellectual head. Above this socle with Caspar Gevartius’ distichs, on either side of which are seated two winged youths with the emblems of Minerva and Hercules, stands the pedestal with the family escutcheon supporting the portrait in an oval frame with pearl-strings, wreath of palms, torches and trumpets. Above the portrait is a group symbolizing the goal that lies hidden behind this frons serena — the globe crowned by the winged laurel wreath, and over it the evening star encircled by the snake — emblem of Hesperia’s universal sway to the end of time, a sway however, which, as promised by? the olive branch, also brings universal peace. Lastly we have a very singular full-length portrait, in the possession of the Duke of Villahermosa, in Madrid, which however is by' another hand and executed before the arrival of Velazquez. This picture, with the head 1 It was originally in a private collection in Madrid, whence it passed to Louis Philippe’s Spanish Gallery, and thence through Farrar to Huth in 1863. Olivares 119 planted more between the shoulders on a heavy trunk, looks like a scenic piece with its massive gold chains and gold spurs. Yet it perhaps ex- presses the eccentric character of the man, if somewhat exaggerated, better than those more dignified interpretations. The ingenious suggestion has OLIVARES. I 20 V ELAZQUEZ. been made that it may be a portrait of his brother, because of the puzzling red cross of Calatrava, for Olivares elsewhere wears the green Order of Alcantara, and no one could be a knight of two Orders. But Orders could be exchanged and substituted one for another, as in fact was the case with Olivares. In 1623 the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo had to surrender to him his Alcantara Order, which was worth twelve thousand ducats, being indemnified by the Order of Christ with additional allowance. Olivares was hump-shouldered, and to judge from Pedro Perret’s engraving in an account of Constantinople dedicated to him his figure by no means corresponded to Voiture’s description. The deformity was masked by the artist’s skilful arrangement of the costume. Charles Prince of Wales. Amongst Velazquez’ first portraits in Madrid was that of Charles Stuart, at that time Prince of Wales, who was on a visit to the Court, with a view to a contemplated marriage with the infanta. The prince gave him a sitting shortly before his departure; but it ended in a mere sketch, for which the artist received a hundred escudos, together with Charles’ " special mark of favour.” No mention occurs in any inventory of this sketch, about the pretended rediscovery of which an Englishman some years ago created no little sensation. But the stay of this Art-loving prince at the Court was not altogether without results. His enthusiasm for paintings, especially of the Venetian school, may have opened the young king’s eyes to the value of his inherited treasures. When Charles saw Titian’s famous Antiope, the Venus of El Pardo, with its grand Alpine landscape, he spoke of it in such terms that, in accordance with the rules of Spanish etiquette, Philip felt bound to make him a present of it. By a decree of June 1 1 he ordered the Marquis de Flores Davila to consign the work to Balthasar Gerbier, painter to the Prince of Wales, “ because he had heard that the prince had expressed his approval of it.” This was amongst the most highly valued Court paintings, and when Philip III. heard of the fire in the palace in which perished some of the best works, and especially Philip II.’s Portrait Gallery, his first enquiry was for this Titian, adding, "That’s a comfort, for all the rest can be replaced.” According to Bathoe’s catalogue of the royal collection Charles must have also brought from Spain : The Girl with the Fur Cloak, probably the same that passed to the Crozat collection and thence to the Hermitage ; a John the Baptist with the reed cross pointing forwards ; and the Portrait of The Italian Court Painters. i 2 1 Charles V. with the Irish wolf-dog. The last mentioned was afterwards brought back by the Spanish ambassador ; but according to Carducho Philip also presented Charles with several of the mythological pieces from the Titian apartment behind the “Emperors’ Garden,” and the Court painter himself saw both Dianas at the Bath, the Danae and the Europa “with the rest” already packed up. The prince however went off without taking them with him, perhaps because he had already made up his mind to break off the engagement with the infanta. Nevertheless six years later Sir Francis Cottington appears to have been still looking after those works : “ I will inquire for thos pictures of the Conde de Benevente, and indever to gett allso thos ofTitian, w ch I left in y e Palace y e I st time .” 1 These gifts and purchases were the beginnings of what afterwards grew to be the first Titian collection in Europe. Five years later Charles secured the Gonzaga Gallery in Mantua ; and when he could not get the originals he had copies taken, engaging for the purpose Michael Cross and the miniature painter Peter Oliver. But at that time it was easy enough to get copies in Madrid. When Count Harrach visited the Alcazar under the guidance of Carreno, he saw a painter there who was working up a regular stock, and bought of him four Guidos and two small Correggios . 3 The Italian Court Painters. During these early years Velazquez executed his first historical work — an episode from the history of the immediate past. The painting, which was partly allegorical and so far unique, has completely disappeared, and might consequently be disposed of in a few lines. But the occasion of its produc- tion opens a perspective of the circumstances and pursuits of the local Art world and of our master’s relations to it, which is not merely^ of biographical but of general historical interest. After his first success he might have seemed in a position to disregard the rivalry of colleagues ; but one can now see that it was not quite so. He had entered a sphere in which success, whether real or superficial, was wont to be attended by consequences which could not fail to remind him that he was now a courtier. A contemporary writer assures us that there were then in Madrid brilliant talents and daring colourists numerous enough to supply the wants of many cities and even states ; hence neither could there be any lack of envy and emulation. To sit in judgment on the merits of living and dead artists was a favourite entertainment of the choice wits of the capital, and the 1 Cottington to Endymion Porter, Nov. 2, 1629. Sainsbury, Rubens, 293. 2 Diary, March 4, 1675. 122 Velazquez. extremely few who were fortunate enough to rise above the surface might well be prepared for some sharp criticism. Nor was Velazquez spared certain captious remarks and disparaging comparisons. At the head of this circle of artists stood the last survivors of the Escorial group, many of whom during the previous reign had still been engaged in completing the decorative work of the Pardo Palace. There were three Italians, to whom had fallen the eagerly desired though scantily endowed post of Court painters ( pinto r del rey). In 1623 Velazquez found as his colleagues, besides Gonzalez, the two Italians Vincenzo Carducho and Eugenio Caxesi. Carducho was a native of Florence, but while still quite young had removed to Spain with his much older brother Bartolommeo. But Caxesi, although the son of a citizen of Arezzo, was himself born in Madrid in the year 1577. After the death of Gonzalez his place was filled by a third, Angelo Nardi, who however had completed his education in Italy, and had not removed to Spain till about 1615. Thus it was that Velazquez found himself associated with three artists of Tuscan descent, and although one had never been to Italy, all three doubtless had a national fellow-feeling, were intimate friends, had jointly executed many works, and were quietly convinced of the innate superiority of their race in all Art matters. And in point of fact no one could approach them in knowledge, tact, and productiveness. Their reputation was attested by their works in the most opulent and renowned sanctuaries, in the Sagrario of Toledo, in Guadalupe, and in many foundations of wealthy Churchmen. They also wielded the pen, writing either original works or translations from the Italian for the improvement of Art education in Spain. But with characteristic pliancy they had withal adapted themselves to the Spanish national spirit, as indeed all must do who would hold their ground in that country. From their works no one would probably suspect them to be Italians. Moreover, although their spokesman, Carducho, calls that Escorial interlude the epoch “ when the true knowledge and appreciation of Art was introduced into Spain,” and although two of them were very nearly related to some of the painters of the period of Philip II., nevertheless their style had nothing in common with that of their elder kindred, or of the Escorial painters Pellegrini, Zuccari, Cambiasi. They could not escape from the changes of time, although they still regarded the present as a period of decadence. Vincenzo Carducho’s paintings show as little resemblance to those of his brother Bartolommeo as do the works of Cristofano Allori and Matteo Rosselli to those of Angiolo Bronzino and Rossi. They lack the strong sense of style of those lauded mannerists with their contrasts and ideal forms, Caxesi ; Nardi. 123 their erudition and powerful draughtsmanship, their clear, cold, variegated colouring. But on the other hand we meet many things which they seem theoretically to regard as worthless. We see them, though perhaps reluc- tantly and in a half-hearted way, occasionally condescend to national individualism, to minute detail in accessories, to strong colour and light effects. And withal we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that of their productions but very few are able to deeply interest us. Caxesi.— Eugenio Caxesi’s father was that Patrizio who had translated Vignola’s Five Institutions (1593) ; but his mother was a Spaniard, Casilda de Fuentes, daughter of Juan Manzano, master of the works at the Escorial. In his paintings we notice broad masses of shade with indifference to the middle tones and colours, national types and a certain sombre grandeza. Judging from his Passion pieces in the chief church of Alcala one would feel inclined to class him with the tenebrosi. His Madonna (Prado, 698) is a Castilian with thick eyebrows and small black eyes. But neither he nor his colleagues should be judged from a number of hasty decorative pieces ; yet a visit to St. Antonio de los Portugueses would be repaid by a sight of his Saints Elizabeth and Engracia, two simple monastic but still royal figures, their legends spiritedly sketched in the background. His Agamemnon in the salon nuevo of the palace was valued at a thousand ducats, none of which however came his way ; and the work, on which he had bestowed much time and labour, has perished. More fortunate was another dealing with contemporary history, of which more anon ; it betrays his tendency towards the manner of the painter whom he at the time confronted as a rival. Nardi. — The Florentine Angelo Nardi had the advantage above the others of having been recently trained in Italy, probably on the principles of the Bolognese Academy, and more especially of the Venetians. He is best represented by the series in the Bernardine Nunnery at Alcala, begun in 1618 and completed in 1621. The work was so well received that he was forthwith entrusted with a more comprehensive series of fifteen pieces for the church of the same Order at Jaen, and with a third for the Chapel of the Concepcion in La Guardia. The Alcala work comprised seven large altar-pieces and two for the side walls of the Capilla mayor. In these we see an artist who has mastered all the pictorial resources of the Italians after the receipts of the Caracci Eclectics. Here the learned drawing of the Roman school is combined with the pictorial effects of the North Italians, Tintoretto’s strong chiaroscuro and bold foreshortenings, Paolo Veronese’s gorgeous colouring and costumes. His beautiful young St. Sebastian, his powerful Peter Crucified, are pre-eminent 124 V ELAZOUEZ. amongst many analogous works ; his St. Laurence and the Assumption are replete with studies of Titian. Interest is imparted to these productions by their varied invention, animated exposition, strong motive in the action, the prancing horse for instance, an often recurring motive. He was especially happy in his treatment of chiaroscuro for indicating the planes, for giving prominence or the reverse to his chief figures, for night scenes and glorias let down on the groups by a well-calculated light from above. Carducho . — The third and foremost of the Court painters was the Floren- tine Vincenzo Carducho (appointed in 1609;, whose brother Bartolommeo had worked with Zuccaro at the dome of the Florentine Cathedral. The few surviving works of Bartolommeo, such as the Last Supper and the Descent of the Cross, now in the Prado, are the purest and most conscientious of ail the productions of these Escorial painters, still showing in their colouring the taste of Andrea del Sarto’s school. Vincenzo, educated entirely by his brother, was called the universal heir of his Art ; but the fact is Bar- tolommeo is incomparably superior, despite the vastly more numerous works of the younger brother. Vincenzo had quite the constitution of the great Italians, their animation and versatility, their astounding energy. So far as regards number and dimensions his productions have been equalled by no Spaniard. They are even met with. abroad, as in Dresden, in the Hermitage and in the Esterhazy collection. As he was a popular teacher he was doubtless able to avail himself of numerous pupils in the execution of so many comprehensive works after his own drawings and sketches. In his treatise on painting Carducho has left a monument of his talent as an author. He appears in the character of an earnest person, with strict principles and a lofty sense of the dignity of his Art. His portrait, which Stirling-Maxwell possessed, and the engraving in his work after another likeness, show a long face with high forehead of almost ascetic severity, heavy large-jointed hands. From his earliest known works, especially the St. Francis in Valladolid (1606) and the Baptist Preaching in the Academy (1610), he appears to have begun his career in Valladolid. In the paintings of the retablo in Guadalupe he employs strong light effects, while in the scenes from the history of St. Juan de Mata (Don Sebastian’s Gallery) we find on the con- trary the lighter colouristic manner of the second Florentine school. At the same time his expression is feeble, his exposition theatrical, his sentiment strained. Precisely at the time when he comes within the scope of our narrative, we find him undertaking his most comprehensive commission — the fifty-five Carducho. 125 scenes from the history of the Carthusians, painted in oil on the largest scale, for the cloisters of the Carthusian Monastery in Paular. When the mo- nastic foundations were suppressed these paintings were removed to the National Museum of Sta. Trinidad, in Madrid, and after the dispersion of that collection some of the best were still to be seen in the upper gallery of the Ministerio del Fomento. For this commission he received in four yearly in- stalments (1628-32) altogether six thousand ducats. Besides the chalk draw- ings on blue paper heightened with white he also made coloured sketches for the work. In the Scottish National Gallery is seen under the name of Velaz- quez the Pope’s Dream, a spirited little painting, which promises more than is realized in his finished productions. The rich red tints of the foreground with the Pope’s tent, the deeply saturated charming landscape farther back, the whole bathed in a silvery shimmer, produce a general effect which seems to explain the name attached to this work. The perusal of Carducho’s book leads one to expect a production perhaps in a severe style, or else in a manner somewhat resembling that of Le Sueur, with whom not only Stirling-Maxwell but even Frenchmen have compared to their advantage the Paular paintings. But Spanish taste was too strong even for such a systematic head as Vincenzo’s. At the same time the composition displays much Art, and the white habits of the tall monkish figures are certainly excellent studies. But what is chiefly remarkable in these pictures is precisely what he theoretically disregards, that is, the epical fulness of the narrative and of the accessories ; the rich scenery and airy architecture, extensive Castilian views abounding in figures, monastic and peasant types, the varied, genial, ecstatic or grim motives of the monkish legends. The ghastly scene depicting Raymund's exequies is worthy of Hofmann himself. In order to catch the spirit of the Spanish monastic style, Carducho had _ visited Valencia, where he had heard of Ribalta’s works, and had also made a trip to Granada, where the Carthusian Juan Sanchez Cotan (ob. 1627), formerly a friar of Paular, had treated the same subjects in the religious house before the Elvira Gate. With all his Tuscan pride he could stoop to copy such models as these. Whoever visits Sta. Trinidad is struck by two lovely Madonnas, visions by which St. Bruno was twice favoured, the second time at his last hour. There is nothing of Spanish womanhood about them ; but Stirling-Maxwell ventures the opinion that few Castilians would have realized the tender sensuous beauty of his Holy Virgins (. Annals i., 423). Now the fact is these very Madonnas are simply faithful copies of the devout creations of that mystic Fray Juan of Granada ! How much colder and more theatrical is Carducho’s own Madonna in his best altar-piece, the Velazquez. i 26 showy glowing Annunziata in the Church of the Encarnacion in Madrid, although here he reaches the summit of his Art as a colourist ! Carducho, like the whole period, has already lost the style which he preaches in his book ; he lacks the great personality that an artist with these professions should possess. But in him we also miss the truth to Nature, which he barely condescends to recognize, the truth of sentiment and conviction. Hence his works remain mediocre, with all their learning and many-s'ded cleverness. Carducho s Work on Painting . — Meanwhile our three Tuscans, who had it hitherto all their own way, suddenly saw themselves confronted by a young man from the provinces, honoured with office and emoluments, more highly favoured than any painter since the time of Philip II. He certainly did not poach on their preserves, and made no attempt to interfere with their retablos and decorative work on the ceilings of the royal apartments. But the wounds of vanity are often felt more keenly than those of interest. And on what was this success built up? Wheie were the credentials of the true artist ? Portraits, scenes of low life, things rather calculated to cast doubt on his claims to be considered an artist at all ! Nor had he yet shown himself capable of at all competing with them. But presently two hostile camps were seen bidding each other defiance. Carducho had often given utterance to- his feelings of resentment, and now he at last found an opportunity of embodying them in a work of general interest. His Dialogos were certainly not published till 1633 ; but the section devoted to current topics he had doubtless long been preaching. Cean Bermudez calls it the best work on painting in the Spanish language (i., 251), and it is undoubtedly written in a clear, vigorous style. It is even more spirited than Pacheco’s book ; only it lacks his directness and copious original notices. His description of Italy, from the mouth of a returned traveller, is extracted from Vasari ; but the Spanish writer knew much more about Florence than this Florentine. He attributes the Cathedral Campanile to Cimabue ; the Perseus to Bramante ; groups Fra Angelico with the sculptors; and holds Michael Angelo’s David to be a work about “as remarkable as Bandinelli’s Hercules.” The outward occasion for the appearance of the work was the persistent attempt of the finance department to place artists in the matter of taxation on the same level as artizans, and to this burning question of the times much space is devoted. But a far more serious topic is the growing tendency towards naturalism, the author’s hatred of which is inspired by his “ zeal for the reputation of painting and his fear of its ruin.” The dignity, he argues, that we claim for our Art is based on its intellectual character, its Carducho. 12 7 “ scientific method.” The great (third) epoch, that of Michael Angelo and Raphael, was one of scientific rules and precepts, of learned painting (docta pinturci). Buonarroti was the master of masters, thanks to his knowledge ; the intention of the Pope to deposit his remains in St. Peter’s was a homage to Science. For is not our creative work an intellectual process ? Is it not contemplation, the inner painting, that achieves the outward result? On this alone rests its claim to take its place beside the privileged “ liberal Arts.” Hence true painters are also the imaginative poets of our time ; and here amongst others mention is made of Calderon, Lope, Camoens, but above all — Gongora ! Thus, while the true artist is a thinker, a dialectician, who with pen and pencil “ argues, demonstrates, disproves, concludes,” the naturalist on the contrary is a mere reader, who cannot think beyond what he finds in the book (of Nature). If we depict Nature alone as displayed before our eyes, where is there room for the mind ? Art becomes a mere matter of exercise, of dexterity — that is, a craft ! That “ truth and vividness,” at which the general public are so enraptured and entranced, is merely a function of the potentia operativa — the manual faculty. Those who without preparatory sketch dash off with a bit of chalk on the canvas, and forthwith proceed to paint direct from Nature, often finishing half of the figure before considering how the other half will look, are no artists, but, “ as a prince in Madrid called them, sectaries.” It is such that bring discredit on painting; but especially the genre painters— that is, those who paint the lower classes — “ injure Art without bringing themselves any honour.” Was the Master Aristotle also wrong when he opposed Art as a practical faculty to theoretic activity ? We do not deny that between knowledge and practice there lies a difference, that the realized alone is understood and approved. But logic teaches that the use of Science is not Science. Yet naturalism is mere routine if severed from the Art that should be cultivated ; hence such naturalism is excluded by our author from the category of painting. None can certainly deny that these naturalistic works have the breath of life; but this quality is of no value, as seen in the works of the great masters of the past. “ Drawing and again drawing, contemplation and again more drawing, such is the business of the painter. To sketch, expunge and again sketch, such is the way to greatness. Art consists in invention and composition, in good forms and proportion. Drawing is the foundation and the whole of painting, its life-giving sun.” It produces the good work, which is decked and sustained by colour. But its charms may deviate from the truth and cloak many errors. The Venetian school, still drawn towards 128 Velazquez. beauty and ease, despised drawing, because it shunned thoughtful work. Of that school it was said that they were great colourists and poor draughtsmen ; great in practice but bad theorists. Such were the principles of Carducho and his friends, on which are based his violent diatribes against current taste, and his gloomy forebodings. A false prophet has arisen, whose appearance may perhaps be regarded as a prophecy of the ruin and end of painting. An enthusiast for our Art has said : “ As at the end of this visible world the Anti-Christ, claiming to be the true Christ, will beguile many peoples to their perdition by his imaginary wonders and monstrous deeds, but which are deceitfully false, without truth or permanence, so now also an Anti-Michael Angelo has arisen, who by his farfetched and outward imitation, by his marvellous animation, has contrived to persuade all kinds of people that such is good painting and that his is the right method and teaching ; thus has he turned them aside from the path of immortality. With his new food and his highly-seasoned sauce he has stirred up such lust and licence, that we may doubt whether Nature will be able to digest such strong diet without bringing on a stroke of apoplexy. Who has ever painted, and so well painted, as this monster of wit and talent, almost without rules, instruction, studies, merely with the Art of his genius and with Nature before his eyes ? ” No doubt there are subjects for which naturalism is thoroughly suited, but are they such as to confer honour on our Art ? Scenes of low life ( bodcgones ), tipplers ( bor - radios ) blacklegs and the like, where the great expenditure of thought con- sists in portraying four impudent tramps and two abandoned women to the detriment of Art, and with little fame to the artist. But there remains their last stronghold, portraiture ! Doubtless here the only method is to keep Nature before our eyes ; but then portraiture is a branch of subordinate worth, and “ no great and extraordinary painter has ever been a portraitist.” For such a painter would improve Nature by reason and learned practice, whereas here he must subordinate himself to the model whether it be good or bad, playing false to his own insight, and renouncing all choice. Carducho scoffs at the contemporary misuse of portraiture, which, like Francisco de Holanda, he would wish reserved for distinguished personages, rulers, benefactors of mankind, saints. To the lack of self-respect in the artists he attributes this misuse. In all this we see the same passionate tone as pervades Malvasia’s work. The foe is the same ; but the standpoint is different. Carducho is a stranger to the system of the Italian Academy, and in his work no mention occurs of anyone of the Bolognese School at that time so popular. And how could Eclecticism take root in Spain, where the great masters were absent, The Moriscos. 129 from whose several excellencies choice would have to be made ? Carducho’s system is in fact the old Romano-Florentine Mannerism of the sixteenth century. The Expulsion of the Moriscos. In Carducho's book mention occurs once only of Velazquez’ name, where reference is made to the authors of the great paintings in the new mirrored hall of the Alcazar, obviously for the sole purpose of associating his own and his friend Caxesi's name with those of Titian, Rubens, etc. From this Stirling-Maxwell concludes that Carducho meant to speak “ with respect and admiration ” of Velazquez. 1 But although the book did not appear till 1633, the following considerations will make it pretty evident that it was discussions of this sort that gave rise to the controversy presently to be related. The painter Jusepe Martinez, who, as a friend of Velazquez, may have been well informed on the point, tells us 2 that the king came to hear of some such views of portraiture as the above, with special reference to Velazquez. “They reproach him,” remarked the king one day, “that he can do nothing but paint heads,” hearing which Diego retorted : “ These gentlemen pay me a great compliment ; I at least know no one who knows how to paint a good head.” But he did not allow the matter to rest there, for he also felt himself quite capable of entering the lists with them in their own department of historical painting. Thus originated the idea of a pictorial competition, and in fact Velazquez himself may perhaps have suggested to the king this chivalrous way of deciding the question. Philip accordingly proposed a subject from the national history, to be treated on the same scale of three ells high and five broad by his four painters : Carducho, Caxesi, Nardi, and Velazquez. A commission was appointed to give judgment, and everything so settled as to leave neither side any ground for complaint. The subject was the Expulsion of the Moriscos 3 from Valencia by Philip III. in 1609. This mistaken measure of State policy had long been meditated, and at last brought about by the action of the zealous Archbishop 1 Annals , i., 418. 2 Discursos Practicables, ed. by V. Carderera (Madrid: 1866), p. 117. 3 The term Morisco was properly applied to those Moors who, after the Conquest of Granada, their last stronghold, were allowed to remain in the country on the condition of accepting Christianity. — Translator. 9 I 3° Velazquez. Ribera of Valencia, one of the “shining lights” of the Roman prelacy. To the contemporary Spaniards with their belief in the infallibility of the traditional politico-ecclesiastical system the fatal step naturally appeared the most glorious event of the century, the heroic act of a sainted monarch, setting his seal to their final liberation from the African invaders. Thus Lope sang : — Por el tercero santo, el mar profundo al Africa paso (sentencia justa), despreciando sus Mrbaros tesoros, las ultimas reliquias de los moros. 1 But these bdrbaros tesoros, thus lightly spoken of, meant nothing less than the wealth of a kingdom ; for the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of industrious citizens was but a link in the chain of suicidal acts, by which Spain precipitated her downward course to ruin. Chance or the fates, by a sort of grim irony, taking her contempt of “barbaric store” at her word, so contrived that simultaneously with this event the news arrived of the capture of the Silver Fleet by the Dutch heretics in the Azore waters. Such an occurrence widely distributed over time and space, and origi- nating in subtle causes of a remote and intricate character, could naturally be treated only in a typical if not purely allegorical way, and for this imagination was needed. Now the Italians had said : “ Should such a painter have to handle a topic of his own invention from his own resources, without having Nature before his eyes ; should memory and imagination give the hands an opportunity of showing their owner’s capacity, how bare and naked will then appear his poverty and slender parts ! ” This was a case in point. Philip III. was dead ; Velazquez had never seen him ; the costume was antiquated ; the scene (the Spanish seaboard) remote from Madrid. On the other hand it was a national theme, and many still survived who had seen the actors and the stage. In the painting the king stands in the centre, in armour and robed in white; on his right a figure of Hispania in Roman garb, enthroned at the foot of an edifice, shield and spear in her right hand, ears of corn in her left — apparently the only completely allegorical figure ever painted by Velazquez. Philip points with his sceptre towards the coast, whither soldiers are escorting weeping Moors of every age and sex. The embarkation is going on in the background. As umpires were chosen a Spaniard and an Italian — the Dominican friar Maino of Toledo, and the Roman Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, both familiar with the Art circles of the Court. They pronounced in favour of Velazquez. Corona Tragica, 1627. Rubens in Madrid. 131 But the work has vanished. It is mentioned in the Inventory of 1686 and there valued at six hundred doubloons ; reference is again made to it in the testamentaria of Charles II. (1701), and it was last seen and described by Palomino in 1724. Since then it disappears from the inventories, and no doubt perished in the fire at the palace in 1734. Neither has any drawing or copy of the original ever come to light. Rubens in Madrid. (1628-29.) The nine months’ visit of Rubens to the Court of Madrid was for Velazquez in several respects a stimulating, perhaps even an influential, event. The Antwerp painter had long wished to revisit the southern regions, where he had travelled in his youth. Italy, the land of his early studies, contained the ideals of his Art, and he had hoped to obtain per- mission from the Stadtholder Isabella to pay it a second visit. But from a letter of the Duke of Buckingham, dated April 4, 1628, it appears that the question of sending him to Spain had at that time already been mooted. The opportunity had come from England, where since the beginning of 1627 the English minister had been communicating through Balthasar Gerbier, confidant of the Infanta, the desire to conclude peace with Spain. Rubens having thereupon offered to take charge of the letters that had been received from England on the subject, was sent to the Spanish Court on this mission, and entered the capital in the second week of September 1628. His position in connection with the affair was thus somewhat less than that of a diplomatist, somewhat more than that of courier, and might best be defined as that of a confidential interpreter or expositor of the despatches that had been entrusted to him. After discharging this duty at a meeting of the cabinet on September 28 he gladly retreated into the background, henceforth zealously devoting himself to his proper business as an artist, as is evident from the astounding energy that he now displayed. Even from the period of his first visit twenty-five years previously Madrid possessed productions of his, which are inferior in importance neither to the portraits nor to the historic pieces now executed by him. Amongst them were the large Epiphany and the equestrian effigy of the Duke of Lerma, at that time in Valladolid and later regarded b)' De Monconys (1628) as one of the most remarkable paintings in Spain. Whatever he may have had specially in view, studies of the local Italian treasures, comprehensive commissions or the like, there can be no doubt that he fully accomplished his purpose. 132 Velazquez. On December 2, 1628, he writes to Peiresc : “ Here as everywhere I keep busily at work with painting, and have already executed his Majesty’s eques- trian portrait to his great satisfaction and approval, for he evidently takes quite a special pleasure in painting, and in my opinion this prince is endowed with the finest qualities. I already know him from personal intercourse, as I have a room in the palace, so that he almost daily visits me. I have also done the heads of the whole royal family true to life with every convenience in their presence on behalf of the illustrious Infanta, my mistress.” But the fullest account of his activity is contained in Pacheco’s book, and these particulars must have been communicated by Velazquez himself to his father-in-law. “ He brought with him for his Majesty our Catholic King Philip IV. eight pictures on different subjects and of various sizes, which are placed in the new apartment with other glorious pieces. During his nine months’ stay in Madrid without neglecting his weighty affairs, and although some days suffer- ing from the gout, he painted a great deal, so great is his skill and readiness. First of all he took the king, the queen and the princess half-length, to take back to Flanders ; he made five portraits of his Majesty, amongst them one mounted with other figures with great mastery. Then he also painted the Infanta [Margaret] in the Convent of the Barefoot Nuns more than half-length, and made copies of it. Of private persons he made five or six portraits. He copied everything of Titian’s in the king’s possession . . . and of portraits that of the Landgrave [Philip of Hesse], the Duke of Saxony [John Frederick the Magnanimous], Alba, [Francisco de los] Cobos, a Venetian doge [Gritti], and many other works even besides those belonging to the king. He copied the portrait (after Titian) of Philip II. full length and in armour. He altered some things in his own Adoration of the Kings in the palace ; for Don Diego Mexia (later Marquis of Leganes) a painting of the Conception two ells high, and for Don Jaime de Cardenas ... a John the Evangelist lifesize. It seems incredible that in so short a time and with so much business he could have painted so much. “ He associated little with painters, only with my son-in-law (with whom he had previously exchanged letters) he formed a friendship, and expressed himself very favourably on his works because of his modesty. They visited the Escorial together. “ In a word during the whole time of his stay at Court his Majesty and the chief ministers showed much appreciation of his person and talent. And H. M. favoured him with the post of a secretary to the Privy Council at the Brussels Court during his life and that of his son Albert, with a yearly stipend of one thousand ducats. After the conclusion of his business on his Rubens in Madrid. 133 taking leaving of the king the count-duke gave him a ring in the name of H. M. worth two thousand ducats.” It was formerly supposed that the above-mentioned copies of Titian were intended for Charles I. of England, who had himself seen the originals and in fact ordered copies to be made. It is possible that Rubens may have had his patron in view ; but on the other hand none of these copies were found in the collections of Charles Stuart. Rubens never parted with them, and all remained in his possession to the last. He doubtless also valued them as reminiscences of those happy days of freedom in Italy, and afterwards in Madrid as guest of the Spanish Court. One only of all these works is known to have been inspired by his Spanish surroundings, and this has the additional interest of being a memento of his intercourse with Velazquez, by whom he was accompanied on his trip to the Escorial. On this occasion they scaled a summit of the inhospitable Sierra, whence a view was commanded of the great foundation of Philip II. From the snow-capped peak of the Sierra San Juan en Malagon, the Sierra tocada, so called because constantly wrapped in clouds, he took a sketch of the Escorial, which from this elevation seemed shrunk to the proportions of a jewelled casket, “with the village and the avenue Fresnada with the two ponds, the road to Madrid emerging on the horizon.” “ The range,” he wrote in April 1640, to Balthasar Gerbier, “is very high and steep, difficult to climb and descend ; we saw the clouds far below us, with a clear and bright sky above us. On the summit is a huge wooden cross easily distinguished from Madrid, and a small church of St. John, where a recluse lives, who can here be seen with his ass. On one side is a tower and a house, where the king often withdrew when hunting. We saw much red deer.” From this sketch were afterwards painted several pictures ; one according to Rubens himself by Peter Verhulst, a very indifferent artist, was seen by Edward Norgate, and by him described in such enthusiastic language to Charles I. that the king expressed a wish to possess it. Thereupon Rubens while declaring it unworthy of a place amongst the marvels of the royal cabinet had it completed by the landscape painter under his own guidance. Influence of Rubens on Velazquez. We learn from Pacheco that Rubens, who had formed such a poor opinion of Spanish painters during his first visit, on this occasion made in his son-in-law the acquaintance at least of one in whose works as well as person he found pleasure. “ He expressed himself very favourably on his pictures owing to his modesty,” says Pacheco somewhat strangely, as if the modesty 1 34 Velazquez. were at least a concomitant reason of the approval. At the same time the later evidence of Gaspar de Fuensalida refers to a Court tradition, according to which Rubens recognized Diego as what he was always held to be in the palace, “ the greatest painter that now exists or ever has existed in Europe.” 1 His name does not occur in Rubens’ correspondence; but we have a clear indication of their relations in that engraving by Pontius mentioned at p. 1 1 8, and in the comprehensive orders received in Antwerp, which could scarcely have ensued without Velazquez’ co-operation. I have brought together the data connected with Rubens’ second visit to Madrid, in order to enable the reader to form some idea of the impression he may have produced on Velazquez. Recently an important turning point in Diego’s style has been referred to this event ; the Velazquez style proper has even been traced to the teaching and imitation of Rubens, and it would not be surprising presently to find him described in catalogues as the “ pupil of Herrera, Pacheco and Rubens.” But as it is our conviction that Velazquez has to thank himself alone for what constitutes his true artistic work, it will be important for the purposes of this biography to come to a clear understanding on the point. A critic in the Quarterly Review for October 1872 already detected in the portrait of Philip IV. (Prado, 1071), at that very time painted by Diego, a change of manner due to the advice of Rubens, a change perceptible especially in the warmer and transparent carnations, although still by no means lustrous. The Madrid collection also produced the impression on Jean Rousseau 2 of a difference between the works executed before and after Rubens’ visit. From Rubens, he remarks, evidently date his finest qualities — the enchanting and chivalrous freedom of execution, the wonderful blending of his tints, the delicious freshness and the light, which distinguish them from those of all the masters ; the severe Pacheco could have taught him nothing of all this. But, it may be asked, why need he have learnt it from anyone ? Was it necessary to bring a man from the foggy Netherlands to show him the light in the torrid land of Spain ? Even Spaniards have accepted this hypothesis. Villaamil (op. cit. p. 141) thinks “ the influence is clearly shown in the painting, which be began and ended during Rubens’ stay ; a painting which in its subject as well as in its arrangement, naturalness, power of light and strength of expression, colour and drawing, marks a new era in Velazquez’ style, greatly reminding one of the Flemish painter’s command of glowing colours — the Borrachos.” 1 Revista Europea, 1874, ii., 275. 2 Pemtres Flamands en Espagnc. Influence of Rubens on Velazquez. 135 For the panegyrists this was of course bringing grist to the mill. “ The most useful instruction was his [Rubens’] working before his eyes, showing the neophyte (!) the processes by which he attained his unrivalled splendour. . . The Borrachos reveal the transformation that its author passed through ; they seem in many places — [Has the writer seen them ?] — to reflect the glowing tones which burst from the pencil of the Antwerp master.” That about this time his style underwent a change is true enough, and it was long known that the parting line beween the first and second manners lay about the year 1630. The earlier works, compared with those of Rubens and with his own later productions, appear hard, jejune, dark in the shading, while those immediately following are diffused with an all-pervading light and are more pictorial in colour and outlines. But then close on Rubens’ visit followed the Italian journey, and the Forge of Vulcan, the first work painted on the new principles came from Rome. Meanwhile he had been to Venice, and had, as he said, discovered the “ good and the beautiful ” in Titian and Tintoretto. Hence, if the transformation be not considered sufficiently explained by the inward ripeness of his own contemplative faculty during the glorious years of his early manhood and under the spell of Italian freedom, we have still his well attested study and veneration of the Venetians. Here he found that modelling of the nude in a full light, here those unblended touches, in a word that picturesque style of unrivalled masters, who had also been the masters of Rubens himself. But appeal is made to the Borrachos, said to be painted before the journey, and under the eyes of Rubens. This work proves the contrary, for it is still executed somewhat after the manner of the naturalists, with the sharp contours and dark shades of the one-sided light of the studio. In the Madrid Museum it is directly confronted by the Vulcan painted two years later in Italy, and here even a dull eye may see how the parting line between the two manners lies between these two works. Doubtless Mengs already noticed that the Borrachos is in a somewhat freer style than, for instance, the Sevillan Water-Carrier ; but such an advance from hesitation to freedom is fully accounted for by the intervening decade. Had Velazquez wished to take anything from Rubens it would have been the treatment of the shading, in which his process was at that time really defective. He used the pasty recipes and ochre of the Caraccis, from which the dark parts of his earlier works had suffered. That he could impart clearness and reflected light to the shade by the transparent brown undertints of the Netherlanders, he must as a painter have at once seen. But there still remains the subject of the Borrachos. We might certainly say that Bacchus with his goat-footed associates was no discovery of Rubens, V ELAZQUEZ. 136 for his subject had for over half-a-century been used in the so-called Berru- guete style of ornamentation even in Christian altar-pieces ; and further that we here miss the lewd, a main element of Rubens’ bacchanalian scenes. Still it is possible that the mythological torrent with which he flooded the royal palaces may have prompted Velazquez also for once to attempt some such theme : and in fact from this year date the representations of the nude valuable to him as an artist. But that is all. We fancy he looked upon these Italo-Flemish gods, demi-gods and monsters with a humour somewhat similar to that of Rembrandt, for instance, in his Ganymede. Compare the boisterous rioting of this Flemish Thyasus with the heavy phlegm and light-hearted cynicism of these Castilian boon companions; their stupendous characterization with those stereotyped studies of Rubens, all cast as it were in one mould. But those who would derive Velazquez’ later style from Rubens forget the rule of the old schoolmen : Old bene distinguit bene docet. In order to realize the strongly contrasted effects as between two colourists, we must see both side by side. Rubens’ composition is free, and that of Velazquez is free ; but the freedom of the one shows not the remotest affinity to that of the other. Rubens’ tone is light, and that of Velazquez is light ; but the latter is the cool silvery tone of the all-diffused daylight with the utmost subordination of the colours ; that of the former is a tumultuous harmony of colour effected by means of highly saturated tints drenched in light combined with trans- parent shades ; the results of the one are brought about with the simplest means, those of the other with a lavish expenditure of resources. In a word, to us it is rather a matter of surprise that Velazquez kept so much aloof from the overwhelming influence of this Fleming, to which otherwise the whole school of Madrid more or less resigned itself. Now let us try to see what were probably the real relations of these two men one to the other. Assuredly the appearance in Madrid of such an exceptional personality as Rubens could not fail to stimulate our Court painter. Hitherto he had here held the first place, and four years previously Olivares had declared that henceforth he alone should paint his Majesty. Now he saw himself for a time deprived of this privilege, suspended as it were. The stranger had pitched his tent within the citadel itself ; royalties and dignitaries flocked to give him sittings ; the usher of the chamber had become a mere cicerone of the painter diplomatist, of the trusted friend of cabinet ministers. Even for a person free from envious or unworthy thoughts this were a trial. lo men advanced in years and of settled character similar experiences Influence of Rubens on Velazquez. i37 have ere now proved disastrous. The arrival of Luca Giordano was such a shock to Claudio Coello that he did not long survive his eclipsed star. When Antonio del Castillo beheld in Seville the works of his early associate Murillo, he exclaimed : Ya murid Castillo ! (" Castillo has lived !”) and his words were prophetic. And on his return three years later from Italy Velazquez thanked the king because he had not had himself painted in the interval by any other artist. Still Velazquez’ was one of those happy, simple and well-balanced natures which, conscious from the first of themselves and of their goal, pursue their career unruffled by such incidents. It would even appear that after all he had no reason to be quite so dazzled by the apparition of Rubens as is tacitly assumed. In the first place Rubens had no surprise in store for him. The Duke of Lerma’s equestrian portrait, executed during his first visit, was scarcely surpassed by any of his later portraits ; this piece surely more than balanced the eight works that he now brought with him, such as the Achilles and the Ceres and Pomona, both now in the Prado (Nos. 1,582 and 1,585). Nor did Rubens on this occasion display anything of his more brilliant aspect, "his fire and sublimity of invention,,” as the Spaniards called it. They might be impressed by his five-and-twenty copies after Titian, as an instance of Teutonic capacity for work ; but a thoughtful artist would ask himself why this man is everlastingly translating from Italian into “ Low Dutch,” instead of composing original poems inspired by his new environ- ment of life and Nature, land and people. Then they met on the common ground of portraiture, Velazquez' special field. But when photographs and engravings of their respective likenesses of Spanish courtiers, painters, patrons of Art and others are compared, the judgment still must be : Here we have Nature and life undisguised ; there mannerism, life no doubt, but the life of the painter, his mind. Take thus Isabella of Bourbon, daughter of Henry IV., who was not exactly a beauty. Beneath a high broad brow two large, earnest, cold eyes, a touch of dashed hopes and weariness, the quiet grief of splendid misery, the lower face somewhat compressed, slightly hanging under-lip, cheeks swollen below — such is Velazquez’ picture. But in Rubens’ paraphrase of this text we have a kindly beauty, beaming with health and happiness, that oval face with receding chin, those eyes of the Juno type drunk with sensual delight. The P.ubens portrait of the king himself may certainly be recognized by his invariable features ; but the angles of the family mask so conspicuous 138 V ELAZQUEZ. in him are rounded off ; and in this fresh though somewhat indolent beau vivant what has become of the pallor of this declining race, the austere dignity which so to say died out with him, the cold, reserved, phlegmatic pride ? Velazquez has thoroughly studied his subjects both inwardly and out- wardly, grasped their distinct aspects in accordance with that individual harmony which invests even deformity with a sense of subtle fitness. With him we feel ourselves in the presence of a reality, of men new to us, possibly even unsympathetic, but still attractive through their intense personality. In Rubens we miss this respect for peculiarities; he adapts the features to the types of his own fancy, beautifying or lowering as the case may be ; he imparts to all the same physical constitution, the same expression of sensuous health and genial openness. We call such and such a portrait a fine Rubens, and with that we have said all that need be said. We might suppose Velazquez had no need to fear, scarcely to stud}' such works. What he prized was verdad, no pintura (“ truth, not painting ”). But here he saw only pintura — doubtless a dazzling, ravishing pintura — but, as was said at the time, a professional painting ; an Art ever straining after the strongest effects, in colour, light, character and mimicry always somewhat exceeding the limits of natural truth. The Spaniard may have contemplated these works as the historian contemplates a historical romance. He will perhaps courteously remark : “ I could not have done such a thing,” mentally adding, “ and I should not if I could.” And Velazquez appears in fact to have expressed himself somewhat to this effect, for Pacheco tells us that Rubens was pleased with his modesty or reserve. This virtue is one of the least appreciated > yet even great men appear at times to have possessed it, and Condivi calls even Michael Angelo modeslissimo. Rubens’ actual influence thus appears to have been limited to what the old biographers themselves admitted. His conversation fanned the old desire to visit Italy, while his energetic copying strengthened Diego’s conviction that he must study Venetian Art at the fountain-head. The king admitted the force of his reasons and granted the permission. Velazquez was strictly speaking an artist without a public, for he painted only for Philip. He would consequently seem to have been very dependent ; but on the other hand he was exempt from the service of the multitude, a service often more fatal to the artist than that of princes. Anyhow he never found himself compelled to paint subjects likely to distract him from an earnest study of Nature, nor yet tempted to prostitute his artistic conscience for the love of gain. The Bacchus. i39 The Bacchus (The Borrachos or Topers). During this first chapter of his Court life the royal painter probably devoted himself entirely to portraiture. Through portraiture he obtained his appointment, and he must doubtless have sought to retain it by perfecting himself in this department. But towards the close of this first lustrum he resumed the old studies, even breaking new ground by entering the field of mythology. Here we are introduced to a rural bacchanalian revel, in which the young god, enthroned on a cask between two of his votaries, entertains and crowns a narrow circle of fellow-tipplers. On the date of this work some light is thrown by the palace archives. On September 18, 1628, the king, who was in any case in his debt for some arrears of work done, granted him an increase of salary, consisting of the “daily ration of a chamber barber, together with the other perquisites,” amounting to twelve reals daily, besides a suit of clothes once a year to the value of ninety ducats. In consideration of all this the painter had given a receipt both for the arrears and for any portraits the king might in future require of him. But ten months later (July 22, 1629) he received a lump sum of four hundred ducats in silver, of which three hundred were on account of his works, and one hundred for a painting of Bacchus, “which he had done for the service of H. M.” 1 Perhaps it was this performance which obtained for him the king’s consent to his Italian journey. Philip was highly delighted with the work, and the conjecture seems probable enough that under this form provision was made for the travelling expenses, which are given by Pacheco at precisely four hundred ducats. Even as a rarity this work is precious, being the only bacchanalian piece of Velazquez, one might even add by the Spanish school, if good works alone be considered. It is not a favourite national theme in a land where bormcho was at one time as bad a word as wittol, and worse than fool. Lampooners found no more stinging term of abuse for the hated Olivares, and even one case of drunkenness sufficed to reject the evidence of a witness in a court of justice. But even the Spaniards knew at all times how to treat this vice humoristically. The Andalusians, in this respect more lenient, like the Persians in the Mohammedan world, are even called borrachos by the Castilians, and the Court of Philip IV. was itself less severe on the point. As Queen Bess herself enjoyed the fat knight, and even herself inspired a 1 Villaamil, El Arte en Espaiia, 61 et seq. Docnmentos ineditos lv., 398-9. 140 V ELAZQUEZ. Falstaffian comedy, so we read in contemporary correspondence of high revelry at the Spanish Court and its surroundings. Velazquez may have read how Leonardo da Vinci occasionally got a number of boors together, and while in their cups told them facetious tales, in order to sketch their guffaws. Anyhow he gathered such a company from the populace as had never before been seen on canvas. It is a somewhat motley group — a soldier, a bagpipe player, a beggar, and certain not easily defined gentry. Are they porters, or coopers, or disbanded troopers turned footpads, just as by the reverse process the ranks were recruited from the footpads ? But possibly they may be nothing more than some aged peasants, horny- handed weather-beaten children of the Sierra, for some three-score years browned by the summer heats and scourged by the biting storm. To such, and not to jaded revellers, has gone forth the wine-god’s invitation, this benefactor of mankind bringing to the daily toiler a ray of light in his dark existence, “ freedom in the realm of dreams.” If we consult the picture alone we find this benefactor to be a lusty youth, who, somewhat weary of his more select company, feels the need of unbending, and discovers a fresh distraction in the hilarious Deus nobis here otia fecit of this little group of poor devils swept together from all quarters — in their boisterous merriment, their grotesque gestures, and the stirred-up mud of their rustic slang. The upset goblet on the ground probably slipped from the kneeling soldier, who is just being crowned for his performance. Then will follow the toast, for which we see the glasses and cups already raised, and for which the man with the bagpipes will blow the accompaniment. The foremost of the old adepts grins in a way to show a row of still undecayed shining teeth, and in anticipation of the supreme moment when he may quaff the flowing bowl. He at the same time seems to lend an ear to the broad joke of his neighbour, whose hand rests on his shoulder. The joke itself seems to be made at the observer’s expense, and could we hear it we should scarcely care to repeat it. The third, in profile, awaits the signal for the toast, with raised beaker and with the approving glance of a loyal follower directed towards his chief. The sociable Germans have painters of popular scenes in which every figure laughs or smiles. Spain has produced this almost solitary laughing scene ; but where else has the overflowing laughter of a drinking bout been reproduced in the lines and furrows of an old head with so little loss or caricature? “No Teniers or Hogarth,” says Ford, ever came up to the waggish wassail of his drunkards,” 1 and Curtis adds, “The success of the artist in seizing a laugh and fixing it on the canvas, without converting it 1 Penny Cyclopadia : Article “Velazquez.” The Bacchus. 141 into a grimace, is an unparalleled triumph of skill.” Wilkie often sat for hours together before this picture, which he preferred to all others of the master. At last, wearied with contemplation, he would rise with a sigh of despair. The Bacchus introduces us to our master’s special Olympus. In the treatment of such materials others have with difficulty avoided the common- place and conventional, but with him the Spanish essence here asserts itself in the most uncompromising manner. Like Cervantes, he takes the myth au pied de la lettre. He asks himself, What sort of spectacle should we have were the young god during his triumphal processions really to visit our r 4 2 Velazquez. valleys ? What kind of worshippers would throng round him ? What would this god be like who is most at home in the company of male and female wine-dressers ? In every epoch this scene has been treated by others in a far more learned way. But who will nowadays attempt to make anything of the Cavalier Massimo’s stale bacchanalian piece, with its insipid Neapolitan dancing women in the Madrid Museum, or of Nicholas Poussin’s studies with their processions in bas-relief? Bacchanalian scenes have lately been painted, which look like erudite archaeological dissertations. But scenes depicting man in association with the soil and its gifts, with “ the spirit of the earth,” as old Vilmar puts it, cannot breathe too much of a local flavour. And we may especially congratulate Velazquez that he has spared us those goat- legged monsters, which since the Renaissance have been poured out like a flood of apocalyptic plagues over the sphere of the Fine Arts. Yet this scene, which many have called a parody, is perhaps more Greek than the painter himself was aware of. The Greeks always appreciated the humour of aged revellers. In the dancing satyrs of the Villa Borghese and the Lateran we have the same coarse bones, angular skulls, small eyes, large cheek-bones, and bristly hair as in this picture. Only here everything has been translated from the prestissimo of the Hellenic Kw/zo? to the lento of Spanish phlegm. Although the scene takes place in the open it is nevertheless depicted in the light of the studio. The group seems to be assembled in a dark tavern, lit up by a window to the left. The brightest light is concentrated on the chief figure, reflecting his white flesh tints, and contrasting with the four weather-beaten swarthy heads in their sharply chiselled modelling, their light-absorbing worn-out brown and yellow cloaks and vests. Lastly come four figures in the shade, from which emerge some light nose tips and frontal bosses. Whoever would form an opinion of the artist’s treatment of the nude should study this youthful soft, yet robust, figure of Bacchus. The arm stretched across in front, the projecting knee, the lower leg lit up by the reflected light of the red mantle, all tell us that he has scarcely anything more to learn in this department. Familiarity with the organic structure is combined with the truth of verisimilitude, the natural tenderness, fresh colour and radiance of a youthful frame. The weak side of the picture are the shading and the dark elements. The ruddy brown ground has injured several parts, and even whole figures in their modelling. The crouching tapster on the left is little more than a silhouette , while the foliage of the. vine is reduced to thick brown masses. The Bacchus. M3 The background also is no longer in keeping, although this might probably be improved by cleaning. Compared with later scenes the economy of space arrests attention. The crowded group is pressed quite forward, the figures having, so to say, no elbow-room in front or above, or apparently behind, for in its present state the background produces the effect of a wall washed in blue. One might ask, Was not the scene originally devised for a vaulted surface? Perhaps the hilly landscape is an after-thought, quite in the manner of the later equestrian portraits. Still the general effect is but slightly disturbed by this after-shading. As the chief figures with their broad luminous parts still maintain their full vigour, they even gain by the contrast with those deadened surfaces. The composition also is well balanced. The general contour of the narrow group, the beaming half-naked god by the side of the old man in a mantle, the company arriving with the minstrel closing up the series, the reclining associate of the god acting as a set-off to the kneeling figure bending forward, and more of a like character, betray much reflection concealed under the appearance of accident. This work accordingly marks a certain eminence in the master’s Art. Strictly speaking it was never surpassed in vigour, firmness and morbidezzci of modelling, plasticity of the figures, variety of the luminous grades, expression and animation of the features. Why then was this the first and last of its kind ? Had anything like it been executed in the Netherlands at that time, every gallery in Europe would probably at present possess its Borrachos. Connoisseurs and Art-dealers would have protested that this artist could and should henceforth paint nothing but bacchanalian subjects, and he would have himself assuredly made his fortune in that line. But Velazquez found no pleasure in repeating himself, even if his official position had allowed him to turn his inventive faculty to profit- able account. He never again tried his hand at a scene of revelry. Hence the admirers of this work had to put up with replicas and copies . 1 There exist two repetitions, both of which are in more than one respect still unsolved riddles. One is the picture in the Neapolitan Museum, same 1 Later the painting was removed from the royal bedchamber to the north gallery, and at the king’s death valued at three hundred ducats. In 1686 it rose to four hundred; in 1702 after the death of Charles II. to two hundred doubloons or twenty-four thousand reals. After the fire it appeared without a frame, so that it had presumably suffered, Then it went to Buen Retiro, returning under Charles III. to the new palace, where Goya valued it in 1780 at forty thousand reals. He also etched it, while Mengs’ son-in-law Carmona made a copper-plate engraving, not however in his good Parisian but bad Spanish manner. Neither of these prints reproduces the character of the drawing. Size 1-65 x 2^25 m. i44 V ELAZQUEZ. size as the original, and to this many Art lovers are indebted for the solitary but imperishable impression made on them by the incomparable genius of the Spanish master. It is executed in a gauche technique , of which I have elsewhere met no example. The pigments are laid on the canvas piecemeal in a pasty mass, each piece corresponding as far as possible to a single colour, while round about are seen little raised margins. No less remarkable is it that, even with a copy of the original in one’s hand, none of the marks of a copy can be detected ; nay more, the brighter and genuinely Velazquez colouring appears more original than in the after-shaded Madrid work, whose deteriorated parts, and especially the landscape, may be restored from this replica. It seems scarcely conceivable that the master can have had no hand in this remarkable picture. The second example, usually described as a sketch, also comes from Naples, where it was purchased by the English envoy, Lord Heytesbury, from an Art-dealer by name Simone. It is even signed and dated, the name in a graceful hand appearing on the page of a torn booklet in the left corner, thus : — Diego V. . zquez J. 1634 [not 1624]. Now it has certainly been asked how the painter should have signed a sketch, when he never signed more than two or three of his great works ? And is it likely that he would have allowed four years to elapse between the sketch in 1624 and the execution of the work in 1628 ? These doubts arise from ignorance of the true character of the work. This is no sketch and even Waagen speaks of it as “ spiritedly but by no means sketchily executed.” 1 It is in fact a neat, perfect little picture recalling the style ot the Bassanos — a picture which certainly takes its ideas and plan of grouping from the great canvas, but which may be described as a "completely recast edition ” of that original. Two figures on the left, the cup- bearer with the glass and the satyr, and the pair to the right are omitted and a negro boy introduced, while the other parts are treated after other models. Here the votaries of Bacchus are no longer boors and footpads, but belong to the better classes, perhaps to the shady hangers-on to the Court. The figures are slimmer, the heads narrower, costume and hair in the style of the capital. Nor do they unbend in the same boisterous way. Their gestures are those of clients and parasites, that string of " poor relations,” by whom the Castilian grandees were usually beset. Accordingly they do not press sociably together, but sit at a measured distance, such as might beseem a festive gathering in a monkish community. 1 Treasures , iv., 387. Size 32 x 39 inches. The Borrachos. M5 While the guests are somewhat reserved, the Amphitryo is all the more hilarious. The company, which in the canvas piece chiefly enjoys itself, is here rather the object of the host’s amusement. He is none of your worn- out ne’er-do-weels, already too used up for a Homeric laugh, but a thoroughly healthy faun with full-moon face, plump curves from the cheeks to the full chin, and with a grin which compresses the eyes, opens the mouth and displays a long row of ivory teeth. He is seated on a stool instead of the cask, a festoon with white flowers disposed like a scarf across his naked body. To the left stands a large amphora, to the right a barrel on which sparkles a goblet of red wine. The figure kneeling by his side has a somewhat round head, with short narrow brow, cheek-bones and slit eyes of the Mongolic type, comic enough from his hungry look, here still more so from his happy state of fuddled imbe- cility. The next with the chaplet looks like a " seedy ” Bohemian, with scanty beard and mustachio and the soured air of the cringing “ sponge.” Below him the negro head peeps out over the back of the kneeling figure. The third, in profile, is a jaundiced starveling with retreating brow, receding chin and hollow cheeks. But it is impossible to speak positively as to the authenticity of this work. In the style of painting there is certainly nothing against it, although one still remains not quite convinced. The figures are Spanish, and from their dress evidently belong to this period. Were the canvas cleaned and placed in a better light we might perhaps be able to pronounce a definite judgment. A fresh element of embarrassment is caused by the signature. Although a prion suspicious, the penmanship and free hand still look quite convincing. At the same time all comparison is impossible with undoubted signatures of the master, while the date is differently read— hitherto mostly 1624, although to me it looks like 1634, and here W. Bode agrees with me. The lower end of the 3 seems to have been taken for a mere flourish to finish off the 2, whereas in my opinion it is an organic stroke forming a somewhat angular 3. Our judgment on the so-called “ sketch ” must necessarily depend altogether on this date. If 1624 be correct the work would be a first essay, perhaps a memento of some college bout. But accepting 1634 one might suppose that it had occurred to certain boon companions to make a tableau vivant of the famous borrachos , permanently fixing on canvas this jovial gathering. Or some person of eminence may in this way have indulged in a little joke at the expense of some well-known “ diners-out ” who had the reputation of being steady worshippers of Bacchus. The style of the sketch, however, better suits the date of 1624 3 and if this be correct we may take the large painting as a transformation, in a descending scale, from a Palamedes to 10 Velazquez. 146 a Brouwer, where after the cloth is removed the riff-raff take the place of the “ lords and gentlemen,” and display more vigorous thirst and humour. Only those who may consider a work like the Borrachos as merely an idee prime- sautiere, a sudden “happy thought ” thrown off casually, will scarcely be satisfied with the suggestion that after an interval of four years our master- piece was by this mental process worked out from that decidedly less happy first attempt. THIRD BOOK. THE FIRST JOURNEY TO ROME. 1629 — 1631. EASTWARD HO ! — IN VENICE — TITIAN AND TINTORETTO — ROME IN THE YEAR 163O — ART AND ARTISTS — THE PICTURES OF THE TWELVE MASTERS — HIS OWN PORTRAIT IN THE VILLA MEDICI — TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF • TITUS —THE FORGE OF VULCAN — JOSEPH’S COAT — NAPLES : MARY OF HUNGARY JUSEPE RIBERA. Eastward Ho ! I N the seventeenth century a visit to Italy, as at present to Paris, was the dream of every cultured Spaniard. Not without a fine touch of humour Lope makes one of his fools say that one might be born in France, live in Italy, and die in Spain ; the first because of its unsullied nobility and national monarch ; the second owing to its freedom and fertility ; the third thanks to the faith, which in Spain is so firm, so catholic, so true ! When Velazquez’ Italian colleagues spoke of Florence as the “ modern Athens,” and of Italy as the stronghold of Art, such language was no new gospel to him. An artist who had made his first studies in Pacheco’s house may well be supposed to have left no stone unturned in order one day to visit Rome. Here one should endeavour to picture to oneself the perspective in which, during the first decades of the seventeenth century, the Spaniards contemplated their past Art history. The group which at present is alone conjured up at the mention of Spanish painting, and which has completely concealed that perspective, was at that time just beginning to be developed. The whole of the middle ages had gone down in darkness ; a new era had just dawned about the time of Isabella the Catholic ; but the bright daylight was not diffused till the Spanish painters streamed back from Rome — foremost amongst them Alfonso Berruguete, almost a veteran when he reappeared in Saragossa in the year 15 20. In Florence he had completed a painting by Filip- pino Lippi, was among the youthful admirers of Michael Angelo, and from the Pisan Cartoon had learnt what draughtsmanship meant. Then in the Father- land he revived on canvas the gracefully animated forms of Raphael, and in alabaster Buonarroti’s powerful figures of the prophets. And in the embel- lishment of the Escorial had not Philip II. availed himself mainly of Italian help ? Juan Fernandez de Navarrete, almost the only Spaniard who bore aloft the standard of the national Art, had himself been summoned thither from Italy. And even in Velazquez’ time had not that other Spaniard, 150 Velazquez. the Valencian Ribera, become great in Italy, dominating in Naples over the native painters ? Assuredly young Spanish artists flocked at that time in large numbers to Italy ; yet the remark had already been made that ripe talents alone found advancement there. The majority, dazed by that “ astounding labyrinth of marvels,” lost months and years before recovering their breath ; powerless to undertake anything, they often at last returned to parade their overweening pride as Roman pilgrims, and to scoff at all things native. But at times they died of spleen, learning to their loss that it were better to visit the Spanish schools than the Roman hostelries. Velazquez had several times asked the king’s permission, which in fact had already been promised. Rubens’ visit and their joint study of the Italian works in the Escorial had revived his longing, and possibly Rubens himself had put in a word on his behalf. Doubtless he was indifferent enough to the contemporary generation of Italians. But the curiosity must have been irre- pressible with his own eyes to behold those glories, whose praise had been ringing in his ears since his childhood. "At last, on June 28, the king gave his consent, even urged the journey, and presented him with four hundred silver ducats; payment of his stipend was also to be continued. And on taking leave of the count-duke he received from him a further sum of two hundred ducats in gold, a medal with the king’s effigy and many letters of introduction.” 1 Now it so happened that about this time the Italian horizon became over- cast with the clouds of war, and the journey was naturally influenced by the troubles connected with the Mantuan succession. Events also took a new turn in this year 1629, when France, after the capture of La Rochelle, found herself in a position to take part in the struggle. The result of this change was that the Court of Madrid now resolved to act in concert with the emperor. Colalto crossed the Alps, and with him was to co-operate the great captain Ambrosio Spinola, who had lately (1628) returned from his long campaigns in the Netherlands. At that time Spinola was at the height of his fame. The reputation that he had gained by the siege and capture of Ostend (1604) had been enhanced by the surrender of Breda in 1625. He was the only general in whom Madrid had complete confidence, Spain’s last great captain “ amid the great dearth of talent for the chief command.” 2 His personal wish would have been to crown his lifelong labours by a pacification of the Low Countries, and it was with reluctance and only at the urgent request of the king that 1 Pacheco i., 136. 2 Gandolfo : Despatch of October 19, 1629, in the Turin Record Office. Eastward Ho! 151 he resolved to accept the supreme command in Italy. His more immediate object was to take Casale, capital of Montferrat, and then come to terms with the French and their allies, Venice and the Pope. Lemos had said : “ If we let the Marquis Spinola act we shall have peace, honour and all good things.” All his demands were acceded to ; he was appointed governor of Milan and captain-general with an allowance of thirty-six thousand ducats during war. “ His powers,” said his Genoese fellow- countryman G. B. Saluzzi, “ are the greatest ever granted to a minister, the old Duke of Alba and Don Juan of Austria not excepted, for he has been made absolute plenipotentiary for declaring peace or war and contracting alliances.” Before his departure his daughter Polissena’s marriage with Don Diego Mexia (Leganes) had been solemnized in the queen’s apartments in the royal palace, and in presence of both their Majesties. His sons, General Philip and Augustine Archbishop of Granada, had hastened to the capital once again to meet their illustrious father. Velazquez was now introduced to this famous captain, whom he was to accompany on the journey to Italy. In the general’s suite were also Admiral Don Alvar Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz, the Duke of Lerma, and the Abate Scaglia, who all rode in the same carriage with Spinola to Barcelona, where nine galleys awaited them. Olivares had furnished our artist with superabundant letters of recom- mendation ; and at his request the secretary of State, Don Juan de Villela, wrote to all the Italian envoys at the Court, who on their part provided Velazquez with references for Venice, the small Italian Courts, Rome, and the papal legates in Ferrara and Bologna. But under the strained relations these short and somewhat formal documents would scarcely have sufficed to give the Italian princes a clear idea of his position, or to. remove their mistrust, especially as he was coming in the same vessel as the Spanish general ; hence the envoys supplemented these letters with confidential despatches, one of which, the Venetian, has already been published. 1 Those addressed to Parma and Florence are preserved in the Farnese and Medici archives, and the former, signed by Flavio Atti, and dated Madrid, June 26 1629, shows clearly that there was a suspicion Velazquez might combine the part of a political spy with his professional work. In Venice. Velazquez, who sailed from Barcelona on August 10, and reached Genoa 1 Zarco della Valle, Documentos ineditos , 1870, p. 400. 152 Velazquez. on the 20th, probably acompanied Spinola as far as Milan, where he arrived before the end of the same month. A man of Velazquez’ inoffensive character, and in whom the king or the minister personally interested himself, could at that time alone hope to remain unmolested, or even to reside at all for any length of time in the City by the Lagoons. Hence Mocenigo, the Venetian envoy in Madrid, had taken the precaution to inform the senate that the journey need give rise to no suspicion, as the painter had received permission to undertake it solely for the purpose of completing his Art studies ; further that at Olivares’ request the secretary of State, Don Juan de Vegliella (Villela) had asked him for a safe-conduct and a recommendation to Giorgio Contarini and Vincenzo Grimani. At the time of his arrival in Venice (Giovanni Cornaro was then doge), nothing was to be heard or seen but recruiting and military reviews. With the sanction of the sultan the government was even raising troops and supplies in Albania ; and so exasperated were the people against Spain, that the ambassador in whose house Velazquez resided assigned him a guard of attendants when he went abroad. The Spaniards had never been popular in Venice, and the Duke of Osuna’s hostilities, as well as the secret con- spiracy, were still fresh in the memory of all ; nor did they themselves shut their eyes to the fact that the republic of St. Mark was a thorn in their side. Spain possessed three of the finest and richest provinces in Italy, while the sovereigns of the other states were more or less her pensioned vassals. Venice was in fact the only absolutely free state, her constitution jealously guarding against the rise of a foreign faction. The viceroys and ambassadors however were wont personally to pursue an Anti-Venetian policy, indulging in much stronger language than was approved of in Madrid ; yet even their zeal was surpassed by that of the leading courtiers and palace retainers. The right of asjdum gave them opportunities of insulting the republic, as, for instance, in 1624, when during Benavides’ absence from Venice the embassy became a rendezvous of exiles, bravos, criminals, and the like, who from that stronghold freely raided on the peaceful citizens. Thus, on one occasion with the connivance of the Secre- tary Irles five convicts on their way to the galleys were rescued by these “ roughs ” aided by the palace household, and then, dressed in civilian garb, shown to the people from the embassy windows, “ in proof of privilege.” The hostile feeling came to a head about the time of the Mantuan war of succession, when Venice was the mainspring of the Anti-Spanish league. In Vienna designs were being entertained against the mainland, and the Spanish ambassador had declared that either Rome or Carthage must be razed ( aut In Venice. 153 Roma aut Carthago delenda est). The Italians concluded generally that peace with Spain was impossible, because she would have nothing but slaves or open enemies. Titian and Tintoretto. On Velazquez’ pursuits at that time in Venice we have only a single reference in Palomino : “ He was much pleased with the paintings of Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo, and other artists of that school ; therefore he drew inces- santly the whole time he was there ; and especially he made studies from Tintoretto’s famous Crucifixion [in the school of St. Rocco], and made a copy of the Communion of the Apostles [the Last Supper], which he presented to the king. The war alone prevented him from staying there longer.” It is also evident from all other available data that he must have been specially attracted to Tintoretto, in this agreeing with the prevailing taste. This painter, now a full generation dead, still held artists and the public under the spell of his genius, and “ all who flourished after him yielded to his style.” The school of St. Rocco remained the academy especially of foreign (German) students, and continued to be regarded as the only place where composition, grace, severe draughtsmanship, order and contrast ( [staccatura ) of lights and shadows were to be learnt. The number of drawings and painted copies after works of this school was very great. Tintoretto is one of those who have always had quite as enthusiastic admirers as haters, the former amongst artists, the latter mainly amongst the general public. Some feel irritated at his treatment of the subject, his frivolity ; others see nothing but his pictorial genius, his inexhaustible power of representation. To the former belonged Pacheco (ii., 14, 130, 295, “lack of decorum) ; ” to the latter Velazquez, although his quiet spirit of observation was so fundamentally different from the fiery temperament of Tintoretto. For the description of painting which the Spaniard brought to such perfection the Italian certainly did not lack capacity, as shown by his portraits, but only the phlegm and — time. For the swarm of Tintoretto’s admirers at that time in Venice naturalism was an abomination. Whoever is no stylist ( manieroso ) is a mere cobbler, said Marco Boschini, who has preserved for posterity the sentiments and the cant of these “aesthetes.” In Francisco de los Santos’ Description of the Escoria/, 1 there is a section on the Washing of the Feet, which came from the collection of Charles I., and which still hangs in the chapter-room. This account by the theologian looks as if dictated by a painter, and in the preface the author remarks that in (Madrid: 1681.) Pp. 38, 39. i54 Velazquez. his work he has in fact availed himself of professional aid. Velazquez on the other hand had just recently placed that with other works in the Escorial. Tintoretto’s treatment of this affecting scene, which takes place when the shadow of death has already fallen on the Redeemer, will now probably be regarded by everyone as repulsive, almost frivolous. It looks as if on a hot summer’s day a party of carousers after a drinking bout wanted to have a plunge, and could not get rid of shoes and hose fast enough. Carried away by the idea of producing a resplendent decorative piece, the painter has, with the resources of an Art to which nothing is impossible, opened up a superb vista, allowing the eye in the most delightfully deceptive manner to ramble away amid a glorious perspective of sumptuous edifices, marble terraces and sparkling waters. The figures dispersed over the open hall seem to be motived chiefly as aids to a due appreciation of the perspective relations of this gorgeous architectural structure. Nothing can equal the charm of this open sunlit hall, with its red and blue chess-board pavement, the line of the palace with the arcades behind, the colonnade round the canal closed in with a gateway in the background. After speaking of Raphael’s "gem,” Los Santos thus describes this work, at sight of which Pacheco’s hair would have stood on end : “ Now may follow in the second place, but not as anything inferior , the canvas of Christ washing the Feet of His Disciples on the night of the Last Supper. Here the great Tintoretto surpassed himself ! It contains the most glorious motives (i caprichos ), and is astounding alike in invention and execution. The observer with difficulty convinces himself that it is mere painting. So great is the power of the colour and the treatment of the perspective, that one fancies one may enter and stroll about on the ground paved with diverse coloured slabs, through the reduced scale of which the depth appears so great ; and that the air is circulating between the figures. And these again are adapted in the most lifelike way to their several occupations. The table, the chairs, a dog introduced in one place, are all truth, not painting. The ease and elegance {gala) with which it is done will dismay ttie most skilful artist ; and in a word, every other picture placed by the side of the canvas, will by the contrast of its formal execution, place in a clear light the fact that here is truth.” This remarkable critique, which appreciates the power of representation alone, leaving unnoticed the interpretation of the subject, which is everything to the unprofessional observer, may at the same time be taken as our painter’s views regarding his own ideal — an ideal which he perhaps found confirmed by Tintoretto’s example. The extension of space in the perspective depth, the air circulating between the objects, the truth of the objects themselves, the ease and freedom of touch, the caprichos of the situations, the trans- In Venice. 155 parent expression, the scene appearing not as a work of calculation, but as the thing itself, without circumlocution or traditional appliances, — these characteristics are, so to say, stamped upon the later style of the master. The study of the Venetian’s style of composition might apparently be surmised from the few great historical works Velazquez has left us. In these we find his balanced contrasts of figures bending forward and averted, with inclined, foreshortened, shaded faces. Tintoretto himself seems to have attached most importance to this disposition of animated figures from the standpoints of contrast, while laying special stress on the element of depth. In his works this feature receives such prominence that one is apt to overlook his powers as a colourist, the more so that many are in a bad state of preservation. By the side of the more gorgeous Paolo Tintoretto repre- sented tone, being in this respect akin to Rembrandt. Thus in the Miracle of St. Mark all colours are introduced, but embedded, so to say, in chiaroscuro, pervaded by that greenish golden tone, whose more quiet harmony is preferred by many eyes to the tumultuous music of Veronese. Velazquez also has some notes akin to those of Tintoretto’s palette — the azure blue, the refracted crimson, the orange tones, although his bearing is always light and cool. It may be presumed that portraiture was not overlooked. The Venetian examples, similar to his own in conception, showed our master his own ideals realized with totally different means. How cold and hard must have seemed the figures hitherto executed by him, as he stood before that Nobili in the ducal palace ! However plastically monumental they may be, these works still show the painter developing his style, whereas in Titian’s portraits every trace of growth has already vanished. But in his pupil, Tintoretto, we see how the brush struggles with the agitated play of the features, with the permanent rather than with the transitory. Titian again gave his subjects certain personally distinctive gestures and glances, combining them with the influences of the environment — the sense of - dignity inspired by office, the excitement of social intercourse, conversation in the studio, attitude in presence of a colleague, the imperious air of autho- rity ; and over the whole is thrown the refinement of the well-bred circles. But Tintoretto was mostly satisfied with the simple, general, and traditional attitudes of large portraits. Here we find nothing but the dry seriousness of the man of business, the outward restraint of ceremony, the abstract air of contemplation. But what a lofty simplicity and truth, without a trace of vanity in that portrait in the Colonna Gallery for instance, painted in a full light ! And when they seem captivating, persuasive, or else dictatorial, it is after all more character and habit than momentary or intentional. What Velazquez. 156 wonderful studies of old age ! The symptoms of decay, combined with an indomitable will ; the weariness of years and the habit of mental strain ; unbending pride and courteous formality. What life histories are here recorded ! From the hands of such men death alone can wrest the helm of power ! A few particulars of Velazquez’ journey from Venice to Rome, on his intercourse with cardinals and the like, are mentioned by Pacheco (i., 137) ; but they are unfortunately only outward incidents of travel. “ He took the route by Ferrara, where he handed letters to the papal legate and governor, Cardinal Sacchetti, formerly mtnzio in Spain. His letters to another cardinal he did not deliver. The former received him well, offering him his palace and table ; he excused himself modestly (?) as he did not dine at the usual time ; but if his Illustrissimo 1 were agreeable he would obey and depart from his custom. Thereupon the cardinal sent a special cavalier of his household to prepare a residence for him and his servant, and supply him with the same dishes that were cooked for his own table, and show him the sights of the place. There he stayed two days, and on taking leave the cardinal kept him over three hours seated, and conversed with him on diverse things. . . . He took the road to Rome by Bologna and Our Lady of Loretto. In Bologna he made no stay, nor did he give any letters to Cardinals Ludovisi and Spada, who were there.” He would therefore appear to have been very impatient to get to Rome? for he also passed by Florence, where he at first intended to stop, having been recommended to Court by the Tuscan envoy; hence he might have anticipated a good reception from the Grand Duke. Perhaps he dreaded the winter journey over the Apennines, or possibly there was some religious vow to fulfil at the shrine of Loretto. Rome in the Year 1630. Velazquez entered Rome in the sixth year of the reign of Urban VIII. “Here he received many favours from the Cardinal [Francesco] Barberini, the Pope’s nephew, at whose request he obtained a residence in the Vatican palace. They gave him the keys of some rooms ; the chief apartment was painted in fresco with scenes from the Bible by Federigo Zuccari and others. But he gave up this residence, because it was too much out of the way, and he did not like to be so much alone. All he required was to be let in freely by the watch when he wanted to draw — for instance, Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment, or things by Raphael. There he appeared for many long days, and made great progress ! ” 1 The cardinals had only that very year received the title of “ Eminence.” Rome in 1630. 157 From what he had heard in various quarters Rome was at that time the Promised Land of men in his position. The government of the Barberini (Urban VIII. and nephew) was described as the Golden Age of all peaceful aspirations. But the spectacle presented by the Holy City must have made him fear that the theatre of the war, which had driven him from Venice, might next be shifted to Rome. For three years they had been busy at the fortifications ; the Castel St. Angelo had been strengthened with bastions, armed and provisioned ; Borgia's passage connecting it with the Vatican had been cleared of the houses encumbering the ground ; the memory of the imprisonment of Clement VII. a century before must have been in all men’s minds; all but two of the six gates of the Vatican were closed; Borgo and Lungara were fortified ; under the library an arsenal was equipped, touching which Evelyn remarked that no European prince could boast of a better organized library of Mars for 40,000 men ! Many sneered at the bellicose “ fire and fury ” of his Holiness against phantom foes and invisible attacks. Others mentioned as an evil omen the partial collapse in September 1630 of the Tor dei Conti erected on the Quirinal by Innocent III., and recalled Wallenstein’s remark that Rome had not been sacked for a hundred years. The Pantheon was just then being spoiled, though Velazquez may probably still have seen it in its bronze adornments and without those “ asses’ ears of Bernini,” which have at last been removed in our times. The city was full of warriors and the clash of arms. The Roman nobles, the cardinals, the envoys, sat in their palaces, surrounded by hundreds of truculent retainers and bodyguards, who escorted them on their daily and nightly rounds — at times, like the mediaeval barons, engaging in street brawls and leaving some of their men on the spot. Still more surprising must it have been for our Diego, as a devout Catholic, to learn against whom all the fierce armaments were being directed, and how irreverently his Holiness was spoken of even by his own fellow- countrymen. At the very time when the overthrow of Protestantism seemed sealed (the Edict of Restitution had appeared on March 6, 1629) here was the Head of the Church actually joining arms with the foes of her most zealous champions. Urban VIII. had invited Louis XIII. to enter the lists for the freedom of Italy, and had placed his forces at the Bourbon’s disposal. The Barberini were in fact good Italian patriots. “How fair a thing it were — ” so spoke Cardinal Francesco to the Venetian Pesaro on May 1, 1630, in his country seat by the Alban Lake — “ were Florence, Genoa, Venice and the Pope united in a confederacy like that of Switzerland ; then would Italy be safe outwardly, and well balanced within ; the free states would 158 Velazquez. no longer encroach on the Pope’s rights, and for him it would be an orderly constitution ! ” Spanish personages were the chief butt of the Florentine wit of Urban VIII. in his confidential conversations. On the arrival of the new car- dinals— Sandoval, Spinola, Albornoz and Pamfili — in June, he remarked : “ His Catholic Majesty has sent us a mute and a dwarf in order to frighten us ; ” for Spinola stammered, Sandoval like Monterey was undersized, and Pamfili unquestionably the plainest member of the College of Cardinals. The Spanish envoy, Don Emanuel de Fonseca, Count Monterey, seldom . appeared at Court. The Pope was fond of hearing himself talk, and allowed no one to put a word in. Our artist, however, had no reason to complain of his reception — for which he had to thank Cardinal Francesco, who besides being the patron of all talents had a personal motive for showing attention to those recommended by the Spanish Court. In the summer of 1626 he had been received and entertained there as cardinal legate and nunzio with extraordinary honours, and he had christened the short-lived Infanta Maria Eugenia. A perusal of the letters from Rome during the year of Velazquez’ stay there at the same time shows that politics had not engrossed the universal attention. At the very moment preceding the fresh outburst of war in the north, and while Richelieu was intriguing with Gustavus Adolphus, one might live in Rome as in an Arcadia, associating with poets, plaj^ers, and composers, antiquaries and men of letters, sculptors, architects and painters. The famous bees, originally hornets, on the Barberini family arms, were connected with "Attic bees;” anyhow Urban VIII. forbade the certainly un-Attic use of snuff in the churches, though it was rather an undeserved stroke of the malicious fates that the condemnation of Galileo and the plunder of the Pantheon 1 both happened about this time. Art and Artists. No section of the late Renaissance is better known, at least in its pictorial and plastic monuments, than the Roman period of the first half of the seventeenth century. The epoch of the Borghese, Ludovisi and Barberini still survives — or rather, we must now unfortunately say, till recently survived — in the gardens, galleries, palaces, in which they perpetuated the memory of their name by noble works of Art. This was the period when Rome assumed the characteristic aspect which she retained down to the destructive sand- storms of the present day. And we often seem to receive from their very 1 Whence Don Pasquino’s bitter lampoon : Quod non fccerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini. — T ranslatok . Art and Artists. 159 'lips the conversation of the men of that highly cultured time, so familiar are we with their features through numerous spirited portraits. Hence it is that a mere mention of names suffices to conjure up a vivid picture of the Roman Art world of that epoch. What was extolled at that time as contemporary painting could scarcely have much interest for Velazquez. The splendour of the Academy, whose chief triumphs, the great frescoes, had been achieved in Rome, had from the first belonged rather to the Silver than to the Golden Age, and was now already dying out. The Caracci had passed away; Domenichino was ex- hausted, as was soon shown when he took over the work in the Neapolitan Tesoro ; Guido had long withdrawn from Rome. But while people were saying that “ the Caracci had left no more room for others to fill in Aft ” (Albano) another spirit was in fact already astir. The frescoes five years before completed by Guercino in the Villa Ludovisi had met with greater favour for their power of chiaroscuro and pictorial invention than all pre- vious achievements of the school. In Albano himself the heroic had been thrust aside by the idyllic Arcadian taste; like him, Poussin also showed a decided preference for small figures moving in a large landscape. In this very year the French artist, already six years a civis Romanus , had married Anne Marie Dughet, while his countryman, Claude, of the same age as Velazquez, had returned two years previously to Rome. This was consequently the dawn of the Golden Age of landscape painting. On Velazquez’ life in Rome at this time Pacheco (i., 138) has recorded some interesting details : “ After visiting the palace and the vineyard of the Medici on Trinita dei Monti, he found that this would be the best spot for his studies and summer residence. For it is the most elevated and breeziest ‘ place, and here there are also some excellent statues to copy. And so he begged Count Monterey to procure for him the Florentine duke’s permission to reside there. . . He remained there two months, until compelled by a tertian fever to remove to the neighbourhood of the dwelling of the Count, who was very attentive to him during his illness, sent him his own physician and medicines without charge, and gave orders that everything should be arranged in the house as he desired, besides many presents of delicacies and frequent inquiries.” On Monte Pincio and not far from Velazquez Nicholas Poussin was also staying, and as Stirling-Maxwell fancies, the two foreign Court painters may certainly have met. Those studies of Roman villas and ruins transplant us to scenes, in which strangers of every school and nation have always associated on a friendly footing. Velazquez himself certainly never painted classical landscapes ; but from the bare, rugged crests of his sierras there i6o Velazquez. was diffused over those broad solitary deep blue upland valleys a similar, only wilder, atmosphere than that of Poussin’s Roman landscapes, although in these artistic arrangement takes an incomparably greater share. At the same time it does not seem probable that the two artists really met, for neither was a frequenter of Art circles. Great men do not exactly ramble arm in arm over this earthly abode, as in the shady Elysian Fields. Those nationalities of Romance speech were at that time kept apart, even more by their self-confidence and self-satisfaction in their several cultures than by the wars and their jealous rivalries. The yearnings of both had turned towards Rome ; but Velazquez had been attracted to Italy more through love of knowledge than the desire to create, and he applied himself to the study of the antique and of Michael Angelo rather as a distinguished connoisseur. While few artists have been so little affected by Roman influences as our master, Poussin more than any other painter entirely reconstituted his whole Art from the wreck of ages, from the poets and the scenery of the Campagna. The former, coming with an already finished style, continued to work in the Piazza di Spagna and the Villa Medici exactly as in the apartments of the Madrid Alcazar. The latter, rebuilding painting from its very foundations, released from father- land, office, tradition, freely yielded to his ideal, a "magnificent” manner, to the essence of which belonged greatness of subject-matter, heroic deeds, battles, classical mythologies ; his first law was to avoid detail and regard colour as only so much flattery to beguile the eye . 1 Thus Velazquez soon returns to the most formal Court in the world, where he resumes his work as a Court official, while Poussin remains to create with the freedom of a poet. This idealist, who had declared painting and sculpture one Art, Thore (see p. 2) might have called by antithesis to Velazquez : Le peintre le plus sculpteur qui flit jamais. The Pictures of the Twelve Masters. Here we meet with a statement, which, could it be relied upon, would afford a more definite idea of our master’s relations to the Roman Art world. Mention of it is first made, though doubtfully, by Cean Bermudez who tells us' that on behalf of the king Velazquez bespoke a painting from each of the twelve foremost painters in Italy, and brought these twelve works back with him. The report is referred to a book by Francisco Preciado , 3 who 1 See Poussin’s remarks on painting and the example of the good masters in G. P. Bellori’s Vite dei Pittori (Rome : 1728), pp. 300 et seq. 2 Diccion. v., 170. 3 Arcadia pictorial, etc. (Madrid: 1787), p. 192. The Twelve Masters. 161 had been director of the Spanish Academy in Rome at the end of the last century, and who in his turn takes it from Sandrart’s Teutscher Akademie (Nurnberg: 1675), p. 9. But the Frankfort painter makes no mention of Velazquez in connection with the matter, and it may be asked whether Preciado introduced his name merely because of the much later commission which he really received to purchase some pictures in Italy for Philip IV. This would explain his referring the occurrence to the time of the second Italian journey, although, as Bermudez remarks, several of those painters were at that time (1649) no longer alive. Thus, Valentin had died in 1634; Cavaliere d’Arpino in 1640; Domenichino in 1641; Guido in 1642; and Lanfranco in 1647. Sandrart himself had also already left Italy; con- sequently the transaction must necessarily have taken place on the occasion of this first journey. It had remained impressed on Sandrart’s memory, because it had been the crowning glory of his own foreign travels. Soon after his arrival in Rome although quite a young beginner, he was “included amongst those most famous artists in Italy, who were to prepare for the Spanish king the twelve pieces from the life, all of like size. Then he executed his work so success- fully that, when they were all exhibited during the procession on the feast of Our Lady of Constantinople, it was pronounced one of the best by cardinals, dukes, princes and connoisseurs in Rome.” He also gives the subjects of all except three, which were not ready and were not exhibited at the procession, viz. : those by the Cavaliere Giuseppe d’Arpino, Massimo Stanzioni, and Orazio Gentileschi. The exhibited works were : — Guido, Paris accompanying Helen to the Beach. Guercino, Dido on the Pyre. Pietro da Cartona, Rape of the Sabine Women, “regarded as this master’s best work.” Valentin da Colombi, The Five Senses, in a room at a table in friendly conversation. Sacchi, “ Divine Providence, seated on a stately throne amongst many heavenly women of God-like virtues.” Lanfranco, Diana, Calisto and Actaeon. Domenichino, Diana, “if not superior to all previous ones, still rivalling them.” Poussin, The Plague. Sandrart, Death of Seneca, by torchlight. Now, what probability is there that Velazquez had a partin this business? So far as regards the time no objection can be urged. All were alive in 1630, l6 2 Velazquez. while scarcely one of them could put in an alibi. From other sources we also know that two of the works were actually produced about that time — Poussin’s Plague (1630) and Guercino’s Dido (1631). The mythological subjects also were in accordance with Philip’s taste, as shown by other commissions of a like description. On the other hand it may seem strange that not one of the twelve pictures reached its destination ; for no mention occurs of them in the royal inven- tories, while the first purchasers and the owners of most, perhaps of all of them may be specified down to the present time. Most of them in fact remained in Rome, Guido’s Rape of Helen, and Guercino’s Dido being still in the Palazzo Spada. The latter was even said to have been intended for Queen Anna of France, and was exhibited for three days in Bologna. 1 D’Arpino’s Rape of the Sabines passed from the Palazzo Sacchetti to the Campidoglio Museum, according to Felibien. 2 Poussin’s Plague was sold for sixty scudi to one Matteo, a sculptor, and was afterwards acquired by the Duke of Richelieu ; Sandrart himself remarks that it “ was subsequently valued in Rome at a thousand crowns, bought and paid for.” Was Domenichino’s Diana that famous work in the Palazzo Borghese, which had been painted for Cardinal Borghese, and of which a replica was now desired ? The same suggestion should also apply to Sacchi’s work, for Sandrart’s description agrees with the fresco of the Divina Sapienza on the ceiling of a room in the Palazzo Barberini. Valentin’s Five Senses passed from the Angerstein collection to the Bridgewater Gallery. Sandrart’s Seneca was acquired by his patron Giustiniani, and passed with his collection to the Berlin Museum (No. 445). Lately, however, it has been given to the Erfurt Museum. Hence the nine pictures must no doubt have been finished, but not sent, probably because the purchase money was not forthcoming. Soon after this event, Monterey, a great lover of paintings, gave similar orders to the best artists in Naples, when he removed thither as viceroy. But he was a bad housekeeper and had the reputation of living in more brilliant style than the king himself. In Rome he got so deeply into debt that he found it impossible to remain longer in that place. Thus the completion of the order may well have made shipwreck on this rock, and the paintings, as we see in the case of Poussin, were partly disposed of “ at desperate prices ” by the impecunious artists. However, two other works by Sandrart, a St. Jerome and a Mag- dalen in the Wilderness, were forwarded by Monterey to Madrid on the order of Cardinal Barberini. 1 Ritratti di Celebri Pittori del Secolo XVII., etc. (Rome : 1731), p. 9 2. 3 Entrctiens sur les vies des plus exc. pcintres (Paris : 1685), iv., 258. Velazquez’ Own Portrait. 163 All things considered, it cannot be denied that Monterey may well have availed himself of Velazquez’ advice in the selection of the painters and in his negotiations with them. Pacheco makes doubtless no reference to the sub- ject ; but the son-in-law may naturally have preferred to maintain silence on an affair which ended in such a fiasco. His Own Portrait . 1 Of a portrait of himself which, according to Pacheco, Velazquez executed in Rome, no trace can now be discovered. It is twice referred to by the father-in-law, who says that “ besides other studies he made in Rome a famous likeness of himself, which is now in my possession” (i., 8) ; and again: “ I pass over more than a hundred and fifty of my coloured portraits in order to come to that of my son-in-law, executed in Rome and painted in the manner of the great Titian, and (if it be permitted to say so) not inferior to that artist’s heads” (iii., 8). The picture disappeared at an early date ; nor has any mention ever been made of a copy, while all other likenesses show him in advanced years. Here it might be asked whether this is not the portrait in the Campidoglio Museum recognized by Otto Miindler as one of Velazquez : only idle doubts are just as valuable as idle assertions. Miindler himself called it “a work of his early years and although, according to J. Burckhardt, “ it is modelled as with a breath,” still the broad dark shadows on the foreshortened side of the face belong exclusively to this period. Such a simple bust in a wide robe or dressing-gown, and of which the head alone is finished, would scarcely have been called famoso by Pacheco ; still this might after all be the original sketch, from which the portait in question was executed. As style and time so far agree with the probability of its execution in Rome, the solution of the problem will depend on the resemblance. Now, the only unquestioned self-portrait is that in the Meninas (“Maids of Honour”), in which the painter certainly presents a somewhat different appearance. But then there is an interval of nearly thirty years between the two works, while in the unchangeable parts nothing can be detected at variance with identity. The forms are merely more firmly worked out in the later work, and the delicate features of the young man, perhaps convalescent, to judge from the glitter of the eye, have become fuller. The head also looks altered, owing to the cut of the hair, while on the contrary, brow, nose, and underlip correspond. What distinguishes this from the master's other portraits, and from self- 1 See Frontispiece. 164 Velazquez. portraits in general, is the action of the eyes, which, instead of the usual side-glance, look straight forward as in a mirror. This stare, as well as the slight inclination of the head on the left shoulder and forwards, is seen also in the self-portrait in the Meninas. In the somewhat dreamy look we recognize an open, simple, modest nature. The bust is painted on a light yellow ground almost exclusively in black, white and crimson. But the harmony, especially in the shaded parts, has been greatly modified through the varnish, which has turned brown. If our surmise be correct, it would be a singular, almost unique, stroke of luck that found a place for Velazquez’ portrait in the Roman Capitol. When he sat in contemplation before the Arch of Titus he could have scarcely foreseen such a destiny. In the Villa Medici. The Villa Medici was built in the year 1560 on the site of Lucullus’ Gardens by Annibale Lippi for Cardinal Giovanni Ricci of Montepulciano, after whose death it was acquired by Cardinal Ferdinand dei Medici, and enriched with that world-renowned collection of statues. In 1629 it still contained all the antiques, of which the Venus, the Grinder, and the Group of Wrestlers were not removed to the Tribuna of the Uffizi Palace in Florence till the year 1677. Nothing of the ancient treasures remains except the sarcophagus reliefs and busts decorating in the antiquarian taste of the sixteenth century the facade turned towards the garden. Gian Bologna’s Mercury adorned a fountain ; the fifteen statues of the Niobe group, discovered in 1583, stood at the end of the great alley towards the north, disposed round about a prancing steed, in a hall supported on four pillars, and twenty feet in diameter. The pope himself had sung the praises of this work in some elegant distichs. These Roman villas had contributed not a little to direct the attention of the artists at that time flocking to Rome towards landscape painting. This was specially true of the Villa Borghese, which was laid out at the beginning of the century, and which Evelyn later spoke of as “ an Elysium of delight.” After a long land or sea voyage nothing was comparable to the enjoyment of a sunny morning on the commanding heights of the Villa Medici, whence the eye swept over a sea of Roman houses, the air vibrating with the distant echo of church bells, and round about the fragrance of flowers, the humming of bees, white marble basins, parterres of scarlet verbena con- trasting with the sombre hue of the high laurel and boxwood enclosures. It was as if night should never be again, as if the everlasting Sabbath had already dawned. The Villa Medici. 165 Velazquez also sketched two scenes in his villa as companion pieces. These sketches transplant us to the first happy days which he here spent far from the storms of war or the close atmosphere of courts, in the undis- turbed enjoyment of this delightful earthly retreat. But their unfinished state reminds us how fleeting were those bright days so soon poisoned by the ague, lurking snake-like in the grass. They are rapidly thrown off with pointed pencil and sharply contrasted tints ; as finished wrnrks they might have been charming pictures, whereas now much is left to the imagination. They are, however, the only pieces of the kind which entirely display the master’s hand ; all other similar works lack the clear- ness and unaltered tone of his colouring. VILLA MEDICI. In one of the scenes he met a familiar figure, the Cleopatra-Ariadne of the Belvedere, who seems to comfort him for having to leave that incomparable place. The statue stood in a small marble loggia beneath a lofty arch, the balustraded side-opening affording a view of the cypresses in the Borghese Gardens, while the loggia serves as a frame to the picture. A gleaming light from the plastered wall pierces through the ivy foliage, and is again reflected in the dazzling white structures of the villa on the opposite side. A cavalier in dark hat and cloak is enjoying the prospect, while in the foreground stands a tall, carelessly dressed man with long mantle and white Prado : No. 1106 (0-44 x 0-40 metre) ; No. 1107 (0-44 x 0-38 in.). i66 Velazquez. turban, turned towards a labourer in his shirt-sleeves, who approaches, bending forward with long strides. Perhaps he is asking what the dog of a stranger is doing there. The much-restored Ariadne is now in the Pitti Palace in the large apartment of Giovanni di San Giovanni. A third replica brought later to Madrid has been installed on the ground floor of the Prado. The motive of the pendent piece is the contrast of a white plastered hall surmounted by a marble balustrade over against a dark mass of holm-oaks, the glowing light of heaven penetrating through the narrow apertures of its foliage. The triple opening of the wall with an arch in the centre supported by Ionic columns, exactly iike the loggia of the other piece, is nailed up with some rough boarding, and a statue stands in a niche to the right. This is the hall facing the terrace of the Belvedere, where are now the copies of the Niobe group. The view, which is taken from the parterre , is described by Evelyn as " a mount planted with cypress representing a fortress with a good fountain in the midst. Here is also a row balustraded with white marble, covered over with the natural shrubs, ivy and other perennial greens, divers statues and heads being placed as in niches” (Diary). As we stand before this wall under the tall pines, the palace completely shuts off the view and the noise of the streets. All other artists would have kept such a prospect clear of all vulgar popular elements, and intro- duced nothing but polite company, as gaudily arrayed as the surrounding flower-beds. But our master gives us as well the general neglect and the rude hoarding which were characteristic enough of these princely establishments at that time. On the balustrade, instead of Roman dames fanning them- selves, we have a black-eyed wench reeking of garlic and hanging out her tattered linen, as she tries to catch the soft whisperings of two rustic lovers behind the boxwood hedge below. Another eavesdropper has planted herself behind the same hedge. Into both pieces Velazquez has introduced statues, the study of which had been one of his objects in choosing this residence on Monte Pincio. The charm of these figures depends altogether on the surroundings — a weed- grown garden, a dazzling white architectural structure, reverting as it were to a state of Nature, a few rustic clowns and some marble figures, half antique, half modernized by bold and ignorant restorations. But remove these statues to the safety of museums, or clear away the ruins, and all the charm is gone, and one begins to wonder how such blocks could have ever evoked the poet’s fancy. The Arch of Titus. 167 Triumphal Arch of Titus. In the view of the Arch of Titus Velazquez has left us a third memento of those first months passed in Rome. But this picture can scarcely have been finished on the spot, or altogether by the master’s hand. Under a Roman sky it could hardly have assumed such a dull tone as this — a tone, however, which recurs in the landscapes of his pupil, Mazo. Of the monument itself nothing was at that time visible except the arch with the two composite pillars and the frieze with the inscription, the whole shut in by the remains of the mediaeval castle for which the Frangipan TRIUMPHAL ARCH OF TITUS. family had utilized the surrounding ruins ; in fact the Arch served as the gateway to that castle. But in 1822 the whole monument was disencum- bered of the contiguous structures, and the damaged sides restored with travertine stone. The painter took his stand opposite the front facing the Colosseum in the line of the Via Sacra running through from that direction. To the left we still see the projecting gable of the Turns Cartu- laria, which has long been demolished ; to the right is a mediaeval wall in a line with the Convent of Sta. Francesca Romana, and connecting that building with the facade of the church, which was built by Lambardo in the year 1615. On the other side, where nothing had remained except a narrow remnant of i68 Velazquez. a wall or buttress, we look right through to the eastern enclosure of the Farnese Gardens. The dense masses of poplars, laurels and cypresses, appearing above this enclosure, awaken in that dusty waste a pleasant sense of refreshing park-lands, rural seclusion, still or running waters, and glorious memories of the past. In the foreground to the left the slender stem of a birch tree, branchless to the crown of tufted foliage, but ivy-clad, has been introduced in the bright space between the monument and neighbouring walls. On a huge block of marble in the opposite corner to the right is seated a youth in a slouched hat piping to a few sheep and goats. There is a narrow dark bit of foreground shut off by the monument, through which the open arch above affords a vista in the luminous distance. Here to the left we see strongly foreshortened the north side of the Farnese Gardens with Vignola’s fronton, beyond which appear two of the three columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux, and lastly the shimmering white houses of the approach to the Capitol ( via del Campidoglio), and the corner of the Tabulanum. Before the Arch stand two cavaliers, who are contemplating those singu- larly lifelike and authentic reliefs of one of the greatest catastrophes in the world’s history. The sketch itself we probably owe to this association of ideas. It gives a glimpse of the old Campo Vaccino, which has long vanished. Down to the present century this grandest field of Italic ruins and memories also presented an incomparable suburban landscape. The revolutions of the times had brought back the primeval pastoral scenery, such as we may ima- gine it at the very dawn of Roman history. Thousands have here pondered over Tasso’s musings on fallen states ( cadono le citta), on past glories, on the irony of the fates, on human destinies and landscape painting. Meantime the antlike zeal of recent antiquarian explorers has laid bare the bleached bones of this crumbling skeleton and provided it with a fresh certificate of baptism. But in doing so they have also unfortunately let loose the hitherto pent-up sources of exhalations deadly to the living generations. The Forge of Vulcan. During this Roman interlude Velazquez never forgot his official position as Court painter to Philip IV. for whom he brought back two large works, the Forge of Vulcan and Joseph’s Many-coloured Coat. They seem to be pendent pieces, one depicting detected, the other successful, fraud ; and moreover the same models have for the most part served for both. One approaches these compositions not without some curiosity, for surely we The Forge of Vulcan. 169 shall here discover Italian and Roman influence ! And in fact the first and chief piece really does handle a Homeric subject, in which if the most “ aristocratic ” of the gods is not the central figure, he is at least the spokesman. Here the laurel-crowned and halo-encircled Apollo presents himself in a flowing gold-coloured robe, his shaded vanishing profile standing out against the bright luminous ground. Thus he enters the smithy and with a mysterious warning gesture reveals to the lame Vulcan the domestic trouble which his all-seeing eye has detected. Both the raised and lowered hands pointing with the index fingers in different directions seem to say : FORGE OF VULCAN. “ He came this way, she that way.” No previous announcement had been made, so that he plunges at once in medias res , as shown by the attitude of Vulcan still holding the tongs in his left and the hammer in his right hand ; he has had time only to turn his head to the speaker eagerly to devour the news with upraised staring eyes. So indiscreet has Apollo been in his eagerness to communicate it that it has reached the ears of the four assistants, even the bellows-blower in the background ; for these also have been suddenly arrested in the midst of their deafening work, all their eight eyes converging towards the golden-haired narrator, and all betraying the interest menials will take in the affairs of the mistress of the household. The artist has thus seized the critical turning-point between two actions ; for we exoect the next Velazquez. i 70 moment to see the hammer with a thundering oath come down upon the anvil, in lieu of the head of the absent traitor. At least this gaunt angular head with its hard cheek-bones and black goggle eyes is scarcely suggestive of the characteristically Greek revenge taken by the Homeric Vulcan. Such a situation occurs nowhere else. How did Velazquez come upon it ? Philip, who was so enraptured with the Bacchus may have exclaimed with Theseus, or rather with Bottom, in the “ Midsummer Night’s Dream : ” “ Let him roar again ! ” And as Velazquez had no second Bacchus he may have bethought him of one of the wine-god’s near relations. The plan of the com- position is the same, an open semi-circle of figures on the right, confronted by a leading character to the left, the motive being even of a more delicately comic nature. A pilgrim to Rome might also be expected to exhibit more diversified studies of the nude, and for this very purpose artists had already long had recourse to the forge of Cyclops. Velazquez was perhaps familiar with Titian’s work in Brescia preserved in Cornelius Cort’s engraving, and with Caravaggio’s in the De Reynst Cabinet, which has been engraved by Jeremias Falck. He might have even brought the sketch with him from Madrid. To Velazquez as a painter the specially attractive elements in this subject were naturally the varied aspects of the nude. The careful execution shows unmistakably that it was his intention, here in the freedom and leisure of Rome and under the influence of Michael Angelo’s work in the Sixtine Chapel, for once to indulge in the full representation of the human body. Later he scarcely again found any opportunities for such studies. His models are common brawny workmen, all about the same size, proportions and bodily constitution, but differing in age, attitudes and expression, with delicate grad- ing in the tone of the carnations and luminosity. Apollo has the more refined and youthful forms, Vulcan those of a haggard old man. The blacksmith with his back to the observer has been apparently picked up in a happy-go-lucky sort of way. The lower extremities are badly disposed, the centre of gravity in the right leg being shifted too far to the left. Altogether it is a picture after the artist’s own heart, a picture such as he delights in when he wishes once in a way to breathe freely, and to practise his Art for its own sake. The real and the ideal, knowledge of muscular action and truth of outward form, are all studied with equal care. Here the line of truth to Nature lies between the learnedly plastic or anatomical hardness of a Michael Angelo, and the soft picturesque vagueness of the Venetians. Those who take Velazquez for a bravura painter should study this delicately softened diligent execution, where the touch of the pencil remains nowhere perceptible. The Forge of Vulcan. 171 A new feature, which he has obviously acquired in Italy, is his renuncia- tion of the chiaroscuro peculiar to the naturalists. The deep, sharply contrasted shadows have vanished ; yet such a cavern scene with its blazing fire, red-hot iron, and radiant nimbus seemed specially suited for a sumptuous work in the Caravaggio style. Hence the tendency to model in the fullest possible light here grapples with a somewhat unpromising subject, yet with complete success. The group of figures stands out with startling clearness from the light grey walls,, and is distributed in the perspective depth. For this purpose the artist has recourse to several sources of light. The direct and chief light, as shown by the projected shadows, falls from the front towards the left, presumably through an open door. The wide window on the oppo- site side gives a light from the north, as apparently indicated by the deep blue which has now almost assumed the darkness of night. Lastly we have Apollo's nimbus, the most luminous part in the whole scene being the god’s uplifted arm. Both Vulcan and his assistants receive more or less light from this direct source, which is strong enough to throw a reflected light into the farthest corners of the smithy, while at the same time more or less illuming the shaded sides of the figures. In the case of Vulcan the chiaroscuro is subdued to allow the piercing eyes, flashing with anger, to penetrate through the gloom. Thus each figure has its special note in light and shade. Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, the god of light in the blacksmith's cave ! Have we not here, as suggested by Emil Hiibner, the symbol of the triumph of daylight over the artificial light of studios and taverns, over the brown and black nocturnal apparitions of the tenebrosi and of the Bolognese academicians ? His models were evidently not Italians, but, to judge from the faces, Spaniards, probably from the ambassador’s household. Even the style of hair with its little curly locks hanging over the temples is Spanish. The faces are in some cases ugly enough ; but the bodies have something of the nervous, elastic build of the torero. Athletic force is often displayed in this race under slenderer and even more supple forms than average strength amongst northern peoples. Here we see those natives of the Biscayan and Asturian highlands, who so often astonish the stranger by their surprising feats of tenacious endurance, agility and carrying power, out of all proportion to their small figures. Lastly, a peculiarity of our master is his repugnance to realistic minute- ness of detail. Here his sense of form is quite different from that of his friend Ribera, another excellent painter of the nude. The latter was also one of those who are perpetually hankering after the anatomical studies of their 'prentice days. For Velazquez, on the contrary, the all-important point 172 Velazquez. was the truth of the broad surfaces, “where all is and nothing seems,’’ as Winckelmann remarks. Thus he would prefer giving the general contour of hands and feet, merely suggesting the parting lines of the fingers and toes, and without indicating the joints. Still less does he attend to the wrinkles and callosities of these parts, or to the nuances of the brown and white carnations according as they are exposed to, or protected from, the atmosphere. Besides these strictly professional features, the subject had a special interest for the general public in its domestic motive — jealousy, that inex- haustible theme of the Spanish society of those times. Ou this topic a bulky volume might be written from the works of the playwrights alone. The instantaneous effect produced by the picture depends on the unequalled expression of surprise, on the prompt grasp of the critical moment — what Leonardo da Vinci calls the “ prontitudine.” These attitudes are those of no mere paid models, but of human beings who, as Leonardo required, are taken unawares, or are not conscious of being observed. Here the master seizes the momentary suspension from the combined hot work caused by the instan- taneous absorption of the physical energy in mental surprise ; the moment of arrested attention before the outburst of overwhelming wrath. This situation, somewhat analogous to a stroke of paralysis, is expressed in the figures standing motionless, their hands shackled by heavy implements, without the least exhibition of any stored-up gestures. What tact the artist showed in introducing this romantic element may be seen by comparing this with other analogous works, such as those of Titian and Caravaggio, which give the impression of being mere artificial groups prepared as studies for schools of design. The dramatic theme contains at the same time a comic touch. Velazquez treats the Homeric gods as Shakespeare does the Trojan heroes in “ Troilus and Cressida ;” 1 h^ interprets the myth in the most farcical style of the national comedy. He uses his models not merely as studies for the purpose of infusing a breath of Nature into the conventional forms of the schools. He transfers their very commonplace portraits in the most natural way to the canvas. Thus was produced the comic contrast between high-sounding classic names and the familiarity of an actual scene of the humblest order. At the same time nothing was probably farther from the artist’s intention than to produce a parody, such as occasionally served as a reaction against a pre- 1 The explanation of this puzzling play is perhaps to be sought in the personal rela- tions between Shakespeare and Chapman, whose Homer seems to have appeared a short time before the Troilus and Cressida. — Translator. The Forge of Vulcan. 173 tentious but hollow pompous style. As in the Bacchus, he again took the myth at its word. He had read of a luminary whose daily business it was to perambulate the firmament escorted by dancing nymphs ; hence he must fain represent him as a dancer, as, for instance, in the mythologies of the Corral del principe. In the same way he found it impossible to depict the god of the iron industry except as a blacksmith. An operatic ballet of smiths and Cyclops, according to academic laws of nicely balanced contrasts, was not at all to his taste. He seems to have even deliberately looked up a lame model, with a slight curvature of the spinal column. But strangers, who have made the round of the Roman Art world from the Apollo in Guido's Aurora to that of the Belvedere in the Vatican, feel personally offended at such “a common-place youngster,” as Stirling-Maxwell calls our master's sun-god, wondering how under the shadow of the Vatican, with the models by Phidias and Raphael at hand, Velazquez could have painted “such an ignoble Apollo” ( Annals ii., 118). Richard Ford also suggests “ that the Spaniard, to prove his independence, had lowered his lowest transcript of Nature to brave the ideal and divine under the shadow of Raphael himself” ( Penny Cyclopaedia). It might be added that in this very year 1630 the haughty Spagnoletto himself painted an Apollo with Marsyas, a superb figure in his shimmering, luminous colouring, which shows that even a naturalist knows how to utilize the choicest forms of the antique, for this Apollo takes the Belvedere as its model. Yet even in Rome there are many statues of this god worse than that of our master, as for instance two in the Villa Ludovisi, which look like old eunuchs repulsive to all healthy-minded persons. Thus so far as Apollos are concerned ancient and modern Art have no right to throw stones. But in any case these priests of good taste may be satisfied that Velazquez also appreciated the beautiful forms of antique Art, to study which he in fact took up his residence in the Villa Medici. Had he chosen, he could also have drawn Greek profiles quite as accurately as many others, whose names are unknown to fame. Nor do we suppose that the Romans themselves ever judged this work from such a narrow pedantic standpoint. Richard Cumber- land, although writing in the period of the sham neo-classic revival, clearly saw as a true painter that this subject had given Velazquez an opportunity of displaying his Art to its fullest extent. Mention first occurs of the Forge of Vulcan in the inventory of Buen Retiro, drawn up after the death of Charles II. It passed thence to the new palace, and was valued in 1789 at eighty thousand reals. Size 2^23 x 2 '90 metres. 174 Velazquez. Joseph’s Coat. The second work brought by Velazquez from Rome, and entitled Joseph’s Many-coloured Coat, is of the same size as the Vulcan, has the same number of figures, and the same plan of Composition, and is for the most part executed from the same models. Two only of the figures are in the nude, and the thoroughness of their modelling was early a sub- ject of remark . 1 The scene is placed in an airy and quite empty hall, with marble floor of the chess-board pattern, and two large windows overlooking the blue-green shrubbery of a garden. Here on a low bench is spread a sumptuous carpet, while the aged Jacob is seated,- listening to the report, in a chair under a curtain in the cool shade, illumined by a strong reflected light. This figure is new — an old Jewish head with small eyes and long nose, stretching high his arms with the gesture of sudden horror at the sight of the blood, which leaves no room for any doubtful thoughts. Here, therefore, we have again a chief figure towards which the others are turned, only this time he is not the speaker but the hearer, the victim in fact of the fraud. Although the same models have served for the secondary figures, their expression is more debased. Two, probably the most shameless, have been put forward as spokesmen with the shirt and the party-coloured smock. They are the most vulgar figures ever painted by Velazquez — two fool- hardy sneaks, both together addressing the old man in a loud voice, yet in their glance and attitude a mixed feeling of impudence, fear of detection, and of would-be compassion. At the same time it is quite possible that these may after all be the shepherds who, according to the text, were sent forward with " the coat of many colours.” But the others must in any case be Joseph’s brethren, as stated by Velazquez himself . 2 Two stand somewhat back, in the shade, one looking askance with a sly and timid glance, the other embarrassed and biting his nails. The man in the corner to the left (Reuben ?) is tearing his hair ; but the artist has spared us his face, this most advanced figure turning from the observer, like the corresponding figure in the Vulcan. In its drastic effect this work fully rivals the pendent piece. Beckford even looked on it as a picture of the deepest pathos ; the most convincing proof of extraordinary gifts in Velazquez. He bestows equal care on its 1 Thus F. de los Santos : Las mnestra desmidas, con tal arte y disposicion, que pnede ser exemplar para la Notomia. 2 Ibid. : Le oyer on dezir al Autor. Naples. i75 technique and execution, though it lacks the rich details of the smithy ; he has not even taken the trouble to paint the tunic “of many colours.” The work stands on the level of the “ ragamuffin pieces ” of a Monsu Valentin, only without the decided colours. In the luminosity it also forms a companion piece to the Vulcan. The light, which in the smithy came from the front and left, here falls from behind and from the right. It is more sunny and warmer, although more play is also given to the dark shadows ; the figures are distributed in the light and shade, and these shadows have now become heavy and deadened. Recently the work has suffered from restoration. Naples : Mary of Hungary. At the beginning of winter in 1630, as the time of departure drew near, Velazquez received from Madrid an order to bring back for the king a portrait of his sister, the Infanta Maria, now Consort of Ferdinand King of Hungary. The marriage had been solemnized in Madrid on April 5, 1629 ; but the preparations for the journey had occupied the whole year. Owing to the plague in North Italy, the queen took the round- about route of Naples, where she remained four months, from August 13 to December 18, 1630. Maria Anna de Austria, born in 1606 at Valladoiid, was the younger sister of the Infanta Anna, eldest of the family, who had married Louis XIII. in 1615, and since then had been alienated from her kinsfolk. Both sisters are described by contemporaries as attractive blondes with very fair complexions. Anna, however, far surpassed Maria in beauty, showing scarcely anything of the Habsburg type of the period, which was so strongly stamped on the younger sister. On the other hand Maria was of a more lively temperament and more ready-witted, with “a will of her own.” The Tuscan envoy Baglioni thus describes her appearance in a letter to Ferdinand II. dei Medici : “ She received me standing at the wall near the window. . . . She wore a gold embroidered black velvet gown ; the head-dress was prettier than the robe. She has an angel’s face, one of the loveliest women I have ever seen, with very white skin, light hair inclining more to white than gold, a right royal bearing, the chin rather projecting. . . She listened attentively . . . and replied in a friendly tone, but so softly that I had the greatest difficulty in catching a few words.” Seven years before, when Charles Stuart made his romantic expedition to Madrid, and actually signed the marriage contract (Gardiner, v., 92), she was doubtless still more attractive. Buckingham wrote at the time Velazquez. i 76 to King James: “Without flattery I believe there is no sweeter creature in the world.’' Yet these Englishmen had never seen her to such advan- tage as when she took part in private family festivities, as, for instance, on her brother’s birthday in the spring of 1622 at Aranjuez with mas- querades and theatricals, when the Italian Giulio Cesare Fontana devised the scenery and Juande Tassis composed his romantic fiesta, “Gloria de Niquea’’ for the occa- sion. A few years later she had already the reputation of enjoying much influence with the diplo- matists, and Olivares v-anted to get rid of her by marrying her off, for she was ‘ for her age [sixteen] very shrewd and was thought much of by the king.’ ” She was a daring huntress, and Gongora sings in one of his canzoni, of the boar which this Spanish Cynthia brought down with her gun. During the stormy landing at Genoa, she gave an example of coolness to all, and was not the least “ nervous.” At her first meeting with the Prince of Wales in the Prado, in reply to some of the king’s badinage she dryly remarked on hearing that he was not a Catholic : “ I will never marry a heretic ; I would rather take the veil in the Discalceate Nunnery to protect your Majesty’s interests.” Baglioni describes her daily life in Barcelona — visits to the church on the indulgence days, feeding poor women on the fast days, washing the feet of a boy, ascent of Monserrat afoot and on the abbot’s donkey ; private bull-fights with burlesque costumes; rehearsals of the ballets brought from Madrid; QUEEN MARY OF HUNGARY. punctilious to the utmost. Coming now to Velazquez’ commission, it had occurred to the king, when his sister was leaving the kingdom possibly for ever, that he had no good portrait of her, and that the Court painter’s presence in Italy was a good Queen Mary of Hungary. i 77 opportunity of procuring one. We do not know by whom the portrait was executed which Olivares had in 1625 already sent to the Archduke Ferdinand. Another by Rubens had been sent to Brussels, while two others, in the Pardo and in the Alcazar, had both been taken in her childhood. But after Velazquez’ death “ a portrait of the Infanta Queen of Hungary” 1 was found in the apartments of the palace occupied by him. The work executed in Naples might be one of two pictures — a bust, but no sketch, in the Prado Museum (No. 1074), and the full-length figure in the Berlin Gallery. The Salamanca collection contained a reduced copy of the bust. The Berlin work was also said to come originally from the royal palace ; in the inventory it was numbered 471, and was transferred in 1851, to the Suermondt collection, passing with it in 1872 to Berlin ; till then it had borne the title of Isabella of Bourbon. It is not quite such an important work as has been represented by the writers who wrote for Suermondt. In the first Catalogue (1828, No. 262), the Madrid bust was still described as the “portrait of an unknown lady in Velazquez’ first manner ; ” later, as in the 1845 Cata- logue, No 135, it was entered as Queen Isabella. The subsequent “re-christen- ing,” adopted by the Berlin Catalogue , was based on the discrepancy between it and the genuine equestrian portrait of Isabella (Prado, 1067), on the strong family likeness with her brothers, and on the agreement in point of time. To complete the identification there was still lacking a comparison with some authentic picture of the infanta herself. Such a picture seemed lately to have come to light in a miniature, presumably by Balthasar Gerbier, 2 which Buckingham had brought from Spain. But this miniature is the feeble botchwork of a dilettante , if not painted from memory. Numerous copperplate engravings of the infanta are extant ; that by J. Louys after Soutman’s drawing is apparently based on Rubens’ work ; Wolfgang Kilian’s seems to be still a portrait of her youth, perhaps after that by Gonzalez; that of Cornelius Galle after Van D}^ck, who however never saw her, represents her as an empress and aged. All differ considerably from each other, though still not at variance at least with our portrait, with which that by Merian in the Theatrum Europaeum harmonizes best. The two works, those of Berlin and the Prado, agree so closeky that it 1 Documentos ineditos, lv., 422. 2 Photograph in Lord R. Gower’s Historical Galleries of England. In the upper corner it is stated that : “ This is the picture of the Infanta of Spain that was brought over by the Duke of Bucks. She was to have married King Charles I.” A fine engraving prepared by one of the De Passe family at the time of the negotiations for the marriage in London, represents her on horseback : “ A portraiture of the most excellent Princess Maria of Austria.” Under which follows a list of the Anglo-Spanish marriages since the Conquest, (British Museum). Size of the Prado bust, 0-58 x 0-44 m. ; of the Berlin figure, 2 x ro6 m- 12 i 7 8 Velazquez. is hard to say which is the original. Still the circumstances of Velazquez’ short visit to Naples, when the Court was already breaking up, would scarcely have afforded time for the execution of a full-length figure. Hence he more probably painted the bust only on that occasion, and merely made a sketch of the full figure, which he afterwards finished in Madrid, perhaps not till the death of the empress in 1646, an event by which her brother was so pro- foundly affected. Hence it might be conjectured that the work found in the painter’s residence in 1660 was this full-length likeness, which may never have been exhibited, and may even have been completed only a short time before. It is a pale, intelligent, cold face, in which expression and bearing agree with the traditional character of a resolute, proud and bigoted person, capable however of being at times gracious and affectionate. This latter trait would have been more accentuated, had not the painter spread over her features that icy chillness of ceremonious composure, and indicated with dry sharpness certain otherwise characteristic forms of the nose and mouth. He had an unfortunate eye, the ladies would probably say, for such tricks of plastic nature, points in which he was more interested than in the subtle harmonies of the beautiful. This under-lip in connection with the shadow under the nose — the only shadow on the face — imparts a not altogether agreeable touch of scorn to the expression. On the other hand, the features gain by the style of the hair, the only not absolutely tasteless contemporary fashion. The light hair, frizzled in a hun- dred little curls, is brushed off the forehead, and gathered up above the crown under a small black lace veil, but brushed forward on the sides of the face, which thus seems almost enclosed in a square frame ; angular lines were at that time much in vogue. Owing to the extraordinary costume of the period face and hands alone remain visible ; but even here the artist is saved the effort to give expression to the hands, thanks to the conventional use made of the armchair and pocket-handkerchief, the latter a costly article probably worth a few hundred ducats. Thus the face, as in mediaeval effigies of the saints, appears as the only animated point amid uncongenial surroundings. But while the costume is that of the year 1630, the general treatment betrays touches acquired by the artist in later years. The execution is broad and easy, while the hand holding the pocket-handkerchief is not unlike those surprisingly sketchy hands of the princesses of the following generation. The fiery scarlet red of the curtain occurs in no other work by the master, who for such accessories always uses a more or less sombre purple, inclining to violet. Equally rare is the fiery red of the priming, which reveals itself here and there Ribera. 179 in slight cracks, but which is most visible under the white kerchief. In order effectively to conceal this real ground, as has here been successfully accom- plished, the colours had to be applied very solidly, and, as usual, the most diverse parts are treated with one and the same colour, a yellow brown with a dash of green. Even the chair, elsewhere covered with red, has here a warm leather tone. The general effect is a metallic tone, which, com- bined with the stiff style of the costume, tends to deprive the picture of the warmth of life. Jusepe Ribera. During this first stay in Naples Velazquez also visited Ribera, who for the last ten years had held the distinguished position of Court painter to the viceroy, and was then residing in a spacious mansion over against the Churcli of St. Francis Xavier (now St. Ferdinand). This visit is certainly not referred to by Pacheco, and in fact is first mentioned by Bermudez, who gives no authority for his statement. But even supposing Velazquez had no desire to make the acquaintance of the most famous Spanish painter of the period, he could have scarcely avoided meeting him. Ribera had been entrusted by Osuna with the general management of all artistic work in the Palazzo Reale, where Queen Mary was then residing. Foreign painters, Sandrart for instance, were in the habit of visiting him, and in Rome Diego must often have heard of Ribera, who had shortly before (probably in 1628) been elected a member of the Academy of St. Luke. The competition for the painting of the Chapel del Tesoro in the Cathedral, which had for eighteen years kept the painters’ guilds of both cities in a state of excitement, had just then entered on an acute phase ; for almost simultaneously with our master, Domenichino had at last arrived in Naples. He was soon followed by Lanfranco, who was to execute the fresco-painting of the Cupola of the Gesii. But apart from these considerations, there was scarcely another man in Italy with whom Velazquez was probably more eager to discuss Art questions. By this time he had entirely got rid of the dark manner of his early years. Yet that very manner was closely related to the style of Ribera, whom he had even imitated. Pacheco, after mentioning Ribera, wrote so late as in 1648: “And my son-in-law follows the same path” (ii., 16). Unfortunately no information is extant regarding the interview of the two artists. But fresh light has lately been thrown on Ribera’s personal i8o V ELAZQUEZ. views by the thoroughly trustworthy report of a contemporary writer. 1 These authentic statements, together with a more careful study of his works, are quite at variance with the traditional notions regarding this artist, who is described as a crude naturalist who despised his great precursors, and who, worse still, was a conceited, ambitious, and envious intriguer, plotting at the head of a violent cabal against his colleagues. But Ribera appears to have been treated by tradition in a more than usually “ stepmotherly ” fashion. This artist, who never condescended to pander to the coarse sensuality of the age, had hitherto been known to posterity only through the hostile and utterly untrustworthy accounts of the Neapolitans. Nor is this all. His own artistic records have been, as it were, to the utmost extent interpolated. Our galleries are flooded with the works of pupils and imitations, while the little that is genuine forms the least valuable part of his work. Germany, for instance, possesses only two of his better productions, so that it is not surprising that no one has hitherto been tempted to “ rehabilitate,” or even to trouble himself at all about him. It was in 1625 that the painter Jusepe Martinez of Saragossa made Ribera’s acquaintance in Naples. As men like Ribera are not usually overburdened with ideas, we may presume that he spoke to Velazquez much to the same purpose as he did to Martinez. “ I received from him," says this writer, “ much civility ; he showed me some cabinets and galleries in the great palaces ; I was immensely pleased with everything, although coming from Rome all seemed petty ; for in this city [Naples] everything turns more on the military and cavalry than on things con- nected with the Art of design. So I remarked to my fellow-countryman, who agreed with me.” Ribera showed himself equally polite to Sandrart, who expressly calls him “ courteous ” ( 'hoflich ), and who was introduced by him to the Cavaliere Massimo, an artist who, to believe the scandalous chronicles of the times, must have been regarded by the Spaniard as a detested rival. No less at variance are his sentiments with the local reports, repre- senting him as a sort of naturalistic know-nothing. “ I asked him," continues the Saragossa painter, “ whether he felt no desire to revisit Rome in order again to see the original pictures of his early studies. Then he heaved a deep sigh and said : ‘ Not only do I yearn again to see them, but again to study them ; for these are works which should be very often studied and pondered over. No doubt people now paint from another 1 Jusepe Martinez : Discursos practicables del nobilisimo aide de la pintui'a, edited by Don Valentin Carderera (Madrid : 1866), p. 33 et seq. Ribera. i 8 i standpoint 1 and another practice. Nevertheless if we do not build on this foundation of study, we may easily come to a bad end, especially in the historical subjects, which are the polar-star of perfection ; and herein we are guided by the histories painted by the immortal Raphael in the holy palace ; whoever studies these works will make himself a true and finished historical painter.’ ” 2 “ These words,” adds Martinez, “ showed me how little to the point was that report, according to which this great painter boasted that none of the old or new masters had equalled his unsurpassable works.” Jusepe Ribera had developed his Art under an Italian sky, and, like so many other foreign painters, under the shifting influences of a free wandering life. He had probably been directed towards the Lombard School by the teachings and accounts of his master Ribalta in Valencia. His steps were first turned towards Parma, where he became so imbued with the spirit of Correggio, that a chapel painted by him in that place was by contemporary travellers often taken for a work of this master. Thus began the career of Spagnoletto, as Ribera was called in Italy. But in Italy itself since the time of Correggio taste had undergone a profound change. The public now demanded “ stronger meat ” than the poetry of light, genial unrestrained re-interpretations of the ecclesiasti- cal legends with exclusive regard to the free canons of beauty and bodily charm. The new Art of Caravaggio, another Lombard, produced even in the centre of the school of Bologna a stronger impression than the sublime examples of the older masters preserved in that place. Both Guido and Guercino adopted the plastic, solid manner. The founder of naturalism doubtless himself preferred those unpre- tentious, genuinely pictorial motives of the Dutch type taken from every- day life, and he was certainly fortunate in his choice of fresh, pretty, youthful models. But most patrons of Art wanted realities of quite a different order, and the technique of the torture-chamber was a prevailing feature of the times. Agostino Caracci had depicted the flaying of St. Bartholomew with the indifference of an anatomical demonstrator ; Poussin had taken the prize for ghastliness and bad taste by his skilful manipula- tion of the entrails of St. Erasmus ; in his Crucifixion of Peter, Guido had produced a masterpiece of gibbet scenes ; lastly in his St. Jerome receiving the Viaticum Domenichino thought it incumbent upon him to figure the venerable doctor of the Church as an embodiment of senilit}' in its most repulsive aspect. 1 Rnmbo : lit. “ point of the compass.” 2 Op. cit. p. 35. 182 Velazquez. Ribera, who had at first yielded only to the promptings of his artistic feelings, and had consequently been reduced to penury, now learnt that the man who would control the times must learn to serve them. He studied Caravaggio, and without having known him personally, became his most inspired pupil. Being, as a Spaniard, himself of a realistic and gloomy devo- tional turn, he soon outstripped all contemporaries in the department of ascetic naturalism. To his martyr scenes he gave such a local tone of the gallows, to his heads and figures such a vigour of relief and learned modelling, to his attitudes such characteristic energy and often such a deep pathos, that many declared that where all others had failed success had here been achieved. But so great was the demand for these works that Ribera had first recourse to the burin to multiply them, and then called in the aid of pupils. These furnished most of the works passing under his name ; but if they brought him fame and a brilliant income they have also seriously impaired him in the eyes of posterity by throwing into the shade the better works of his first and brighter manner. This manner, however, he never quite laid aside; we meet it in the middle, and quite at the close, as well as at the outset of his career. His Conception in the Monterey Convent, Salamanca (1635) surpasses all that Guido and Murillo achieved in the interpretation of this mystery. His masterpiece, the Last Supper, in San Martino (1651) was one of the most deeply affecting religious creations of the century. In Naples Ribera took Velazquez to the large new church of Sta. Trinita Maggiore in order to show him the first public work entrusted to him on emerging from obscurity. For this commission — three scenes from the life of St. Ignatius Loyola — he was indebted to his first patron and " discoverer,” Osuna, or rather to this nobleman’s confessor. Here we see the former hidalgo, the fiery and phantastic Basque, who began life as a soldier, and then suddenly turned monk, but who still demeans himself with a somewhat awkward impetuosity. In one scene he kneels with wide out- stretched arms in almost frantic resolution, while the monogram of Jesus the Saviour 1 is shown him in a radiant sun; in another he turns amazed, enraptured, almost embarrassed, towards the vision of the Virgin, who surprises him with the roll on which are inscribed the constitutions of the Order ; in a third he does homage to the Vicar of Christ jointly with his companions who are drawn up in military subordination. Here we see how fresh still were Ribera’s reminiscences of Parma. ’ This monogram was composed of the three letters I.H.S. : Jesus Hominum Salvator , whence the motto and the name of the Order of Jesus (Jesuits) founded by Loyola. — Translator. Ribera. 183 Titian’s famous portrait of Paul III. in the Palazzo Farnese has been introduced into the picture. Thus historical colour and truth of repre- sentation 1 left nothing to be desired. But all that would little interest Velazquez in the presence of this light blue sky with the golden cloudlets of approaching sunset, these fair-haired, florid, wild children of Nature, and this youthful Madonna fondling her Son with a motherly, loving expression, as He turns inquiringly towards the ecstatic figure of Ignatius. That “ colouring of Titian,” the study of which had been prescribed by the Caracci, but which no one seemed any longer to understand, is here once more revived. In these three pictures nothing was dark except the eyes and robe of the Saint ; Velazquez had in Italy seen no production of the century more glowing or painted with a finer harmony of colours. The studio at the entrance of the Strada di Toledo was the resort of a strange company. The Court painter was at that time kept very busy by the Duke of Alcala; and as he dated nearly all his works, the inventory for almost every year can be accurately determined. In 1630 it illustrated the “two souls ” that dwelt within his breast ; for then appeared the Apollo with Marsyas, a study of youthful manhood, where the silvery glow of the com- plexion, the greenish half-tones, the golden hair were blended in a rare harmony on the ground of the shimmering purple mantle. 2 On the other hand the Shepherds, a night scene, was a reminiscence of St. Prospero in Reggio ; here the Madonna bends smilingly over her child. Contrasting with these was a physiological curiosity, the portrait of a bearded woman from the Abruzzi — Maddalena Ventura with husband and child, painted for the Viceroy in 1631 and now in the Academy of San Fernando (No. 140). For the same learned patron Ribera had executed pictures of mendicant philosophers, and an “ Archimedes ” which looked like a caricature by Michael Angelo (Prado 1010). For some time back he had taken to a perfectly hideous model, a gigantic figure with broad massive skull, bushy black eyebrows, cunning eyes and depressed nose, a fellow whom Lavater would have sent to the gallows without more ado. This monster is best preserved in the St. Rocco painted in 1631 and now in the Prado (No. 1000) ; but he was also utilized for the Jacob’s Dream of 1626 (Prado, No. 982), and can again be recognized in the Elias of the Carthusian Monastery of San Martino painted in 1638. Unless we are much mistaken, Velazquez brought back with him to Madrid a correct and favourable impression of Ribera. The very large number of his works which during the following decades gravitated towards the Alcazar 1 Paul III., who confirmed the Order, was a Farnese (Alessandro Farnese). — Trans. 2 In 1874 s °ld in Paris for 2,000 francs. 184 Velazquez. and the Escorial, and which were mostly placed in inhabited apartments, show how popular he had become there. The Prado Museum alone still preserves fifty-eight, the Escorial sixteen, although many of the most interesting, dealing with mythological and Biblical subjects, have disappeared. Amongst the more choice masterpieces in the royal palace were the Jael and Sisera, and the Delilah and Samson. With what originality and true feeling he could treat mythological tragedies is seen in his Death of Adonis, which was formerly in the Alcazar, and perhaps passed thence to the Corsini Gallery, Rome. Velazquez probably sailed from Naples direct for Spain. “ After an absence of eighteen months,” writes Pacheco, " he returned and reached Madrid in the beginning of the year 1631. He was very well received by the Count-Duke, at whose request he at once paid his respects to his Majesty, and warmly thanked him that he had had himself painted by no other painter” [that is, during Velazquez’ absence]. “ His Majesty was much pleased at his return.” Velazquez also appears to have purchased some paintings for the king ; at least in a receipt dated 1634, besides the Vulcan and Joseph’s Coat, mention also occurs of a Danae by Titian, a Susanna by Cambiasi, and a Bassano. £ FOURTH BOOK. THE DAYS OF BUEN RE TIRO. 1631 — 1648. OFFICIAL DUTIES — BUEN RETIRO — PARK VIEWS — THE SURRENDER OF BREDA — HUNTING AND HUNTING-PIECES — THE BOAR-HUNT — THE STAG-HUNT THE THREE ROYAL SPORTSMEN — THE MASTER OF THE HOUNDS ALONSO CANO IN MADRID — MURILLO IN MADRID — THE CRUCIFIXION IN SAN PLACIDO — CHRIST AT THE PILLAR. Official Duties. F OR eighteen years Velazquez now resided without further interruption at the Court of Philip IV., and this period covered the prime of his manhood. After his first studies, the tentative efforts of his early years, the contests and laurels of his opening career, this Italian interlude of change rather than repose had intervened, although for the more highly gifted minds true repose still consists, not in absolute rest, but in change of scene and work. In the Art-world of Italy he had breathed freely, had become fully conscious of his own powers, and acquired a renewed stimulus to create by his wanderings amid “ fresh fields and pastures new.” These eighteen years coincide with the second half of the great war, in which Spain also put forth her last reserve of strength, and after which she ceased to be numbered amongst the Great Powers. At Court little was noticed of this steady decline, except in the financial straits, which, however, were here a chronic disease. Men, says a comic poet, are ever wont to be most merry when they have entered on the high road to ruin. In Madrid the disastrous war made itself chiefly felt in the public celebration of victories, on which occasions luxury and display vied with each other in extravagance. The long-expected birth of an heir had at last brought life and rejoicings to the royal household, and with this last scion of the Habsburgs grew up a charming princess, destined one day to cement an alliance either with the Imperial or the French reigning family. A country seat and a hunting-box sprang up and caused a flutter of excitement in the widest Art circles, attracting all the talent that still survived in the Peninsula, in Flanders and Italy. The first half especially of this period, from 1631 to 1639, was probably the happiest experienced both by Philip and Velazquez. The Court painter stood in the forefront of a host of varied talents, enjoying the ear of the monarch, but exempt from the rivalries to which prominent officials of that class are usually exposed. Standing in no man’s way, and 1 88 Velazquez. exclusively engaged in turning- everything to the best account, he must have felt that his lines at this time had surely fallen in pleasant places. But perhaps for that very reason this period of his life affords little scope to the biographer. Besides the marriage of his daughter, the records speak only of official appointments, increase of stipends, payment of arrears and journeys in the suite of the Court. But for artists and friends of Art, the life of a painter lies in his work, in the development and changes that take place in his style of treatment and technique. What a book we should have were we acquainted with the history of each portrait, its origin, the sittings, the judgments, the approvals, the heart-burnings ! Each would then be a little novel in itself ; but unfortunately we are ignorant even of their very dates. Besides his appointment as Court painter, during this period Velazquez gradually acquired several other offices. Of these the majority were purely Court or honorary positions, a small number only being of strictly adminis- trative character. Their functions were concerned with the daily service of their Majesties, and the palace ceremonies. They were thus the most con- venient form under which increase of income could be secured, together with titles of distinction, which are indispensable to the courtier to strengthen and advance his social position. In this connection one remem- bers that Jan van Eyck, for instance, had been varlet de chambre to Philip the Good. At that time the painter Juan van der Hamen was archero, that is, enrolled in the Burgundian bodyguard. And Palomino tells us that the Florentine sculptor Rutilio Gaxi was one of the twenty acroys, or gentilhombres de la casa, who attended the king to church and on State occasions. The extant documents connected with these appointments and with our artist’s pecuniary relations afford an insight into the financial condition of the Spanish Court, about which however there was never any great mystery. 11 re non paga nessuno (“ The king pays nobody ”), bluntly wrote Baglioni in November 1630. According to Giustiniani’s report for 1649 the royal palace was such an insatiable maw, that the annual revenues of the American goldmines would not have sufficed to punctually pay up all claims of the household. The liveries alone came to a hundred and thirty thousand ducats, and the king’s private purse to two thousand ducats monthly, although he was by no means generous. All the revenues were pledged to the Genoese ; and Alvise Corner wrote in 1624 : “There is no post, no rank, no privileged person that can get punctually paid ; even the pay of the king’s guard, who are always on duty, is three years in arrear. As a special favour creditors may procure an order on one of the Government mints, distant perhaps a hundred miles from Madrid. But there nothing is coined except copper, and Buen Retiro. i 89 when you arrive there is no supply even of that metal, all the money having been sent as soon as coined to Madrid to meet the requirements of the royal household ; besides a hundred orders are waiting their turn. Hence people readily dispose of their credit even at a loss ! ” In the case of persons who, like our painter, stood in high favour, the administration occasionally came to terms ; his stipend would then be increased, he would declare himself satisfied, his balance would be wiped out, and he would waive all claim to future honoraria. Buen Retiro. From about the year 1632 you can scarcely take up a history of Spain without running against the name of Buen Retiro. The Court and city chronicles, the works of poets and painters are intimately associated with this “Castle of Indolence.” When Calderon produced on the feast of St. John in 1636 the great comedy with the description of the three continents, Philip lent for the occasion the Cross of the Order of Santiago, “ with the unanimous approval of the citizens.” Here a stage in harmony with the altered manners had been created by the Hispano-Burgundian Court, at whose head stood a prince needing distraction, but whose minister would give him no peace. The fancy of Tuscan engineers, the innovations of Italian musicians, the genius of the Spanish dramatists, the skill of the Madrid painters, here transformed to decorators, lastly Nature itself reduced to a piece of artificial work, all jointly conspired to produce ephemeral creations, which entranced the senses but acted banefully on the several Arts. Besides the professional actors, Majesty itself and its courtiers, councillors and secretaries of State, at times took part in the performances. The historical painters also had been called in to co-operate in decorating the apartments. Their works, which like those of the poetic muse were the least recompensed, were like them also the only productions of high value — almost all in fact that Buen Retiro has bequeathed to posterity. Down to the close of the last century Buen Retiro still preserved works from every period of our artist’s career — the Water-Carrier of Seville; the Forge of Vulcan ; the large equestrian portraits of the king and his father with their queens, and that of the crown prince ; the Surrender of Breda ; and from his last years the queenly figures which shed a charm over the Court of the failing monarch. Since Madrid had become the royal residence its most favourite promenade lay on the east side. In the present Salon del Prado , where, during the summer evenings, thousands of all classes are bathed in the after-glows of the enchanting “ nights of Madrid,” Perez de Messa, writing i go Velazquez. in 1595, tells us that even in Philip II.’s time the people enjoyed “the sun in winter, the cool air in summer.” Along this spacious avenue, two thousand feet in length and one hundred and twenty broad, the senoras in their stiff attire drove slowly up and down, escorted by the cavaliers on their prancing Andalusian steeds. Under the three rows of poplars, festooned with flower- ing rose-branches, music was played of an evening, while the air was refreshed and the dust laid by the sparkling waters of four fountains. On the sward in the shade of the trees the people feasted and loved, for even under that severe rule the Prado had already become a temple of Venus. The promenade was overlooked by the Convent of St. Geronimo with its Gothic church, spacious garden and olive grove crowning the eminence over against the city. This monastery, founded elsewhere by Henry IV., but removed hither under Isabella, had been from the first closely connected with the Court. In 1510 the Castilian Cortes assembled in the church, and here the lieges did homage to the heir-apparent. Near the church stood a royal residence, the Cuarto Viejo, or Reliro de St. Geronimo , v/hence the kings and queens with their princely guests and envoys entered the city, and whither the royal family withdrew during periods of Court mourning and in Holy Week. Philip II. had the Retiro rebuilt by Juan Bautista Toledo, adding thirty rooms for himself and the queen, with galleries, towers, pleasure- grounds, and moats on the model, as was said, of a country seat which he had occupied with Queen Mary during his stay in England. Foreign visitors were also at times entertained here. Under Philip’s successors another centre of attraction sprang up in this district — the palace, garden, and plaza of the Duke of Lerma, which for public festivities Philip III. preferred to the Plaza mayor. Quevedo thought this ducal residence more charming in its later decadence than in its heyday. True to the new spirit of economy, the present favourite, Olivares, had, much to the disgust of the jaded courtiers, discontinued his “magnificent” predecessor’s practice of entertaining the king in his own villas and palaces. But now, after a lapse of ten years, he found himself compelled to return to the old custom. Philip had to be enticed from the gloomy old Alcazar which fostered his disposition to give way to melancholy broodings. Olivares’ wife’s family owned a garden near the Prado, and he himself had here laid out a little park, where he found some relief from the worries of public affairs in the company of his pet birds — pheasants, swans, and fancy poultry. This place commanded a fine view of the city, and it occurred to him that his preserves might be enlarged and converted into a rustic retreat for the king under the very walls of the capital. He purchased the surrounding Buen Retiro. 19 1 grounds, cut off a slice from the convent olive grove, induced the municipality to grant him certain other lands until he got together a tract about a mile in circumference. It formed the rising ground which skirted the Prado in its entire length from the Alcala highway to the Atocha Church and eastwards to the Valnegral rivulet. Olivares kept his plans a profound secret, so that nobody knew how he came by that property, or what he was doing with all those builders, gardeners, and “ navvies.” “ When I was there the first time,” wrote the Venetian Corner in 1633, “no one had any idea of this building, and within two years all is now finished.” People fancied it was only to be a garden, and now it appeared that he aimed at a second Aranjuez, with its palace, theatre, plaza , preserves, and park. On January 9, 1633, the oratory of a make-believe hermitage was consecrated by three bishops, for the chapel had always been the first place fitted up by the Spanish kings in their mansions. And so, on December I, the king presented himself with the whole Court to “ inaugurate ” the new villa by a grand tournament on the square facing the theatre. Mounted on an Andalusian palfrey he ran a tilt with Olivares, arrayed in an embroided nut-brown velvet robe (a gift from the queen), with blue-white plume (the Infanta Isabella’s colours), a red scarf, large shield and be-pennoned lance. “ Buen Retiro,” wrote Serrano at the time, “will become what Monte Cavallo is in relation to St. Peter's.” Since the military occupation of the Retiro during the wars of the present century, little now remains of this creation of the count-duke. St. Geronimo alone, with its dilapidated cloisters, although the oldest monument in the district, has outlived all storms, and towards the north still towers the remarkable Paerta del Angelc, now removed to the new entrance to the park. The monks were often invited to the theatricals in the hermitage, and they returned the compliment by throwing open their doors to those needing “ absolution ” for the peccadilloes committed amid the temptations of the Retiro. “ For here,” again writes Serrano, “ it is a perpetual round of ceremonies, audiences, etiquette, with devo- tional exercises and ‘ discipline,’ one following the other like sleep and wakefulness.” The new palace was contiguous north-eastwards with the convent, and more immediately with the quarters of Philip II., who had here built a large quadrangle a hundred and twenty feet square, with thirteen windows and balconies on the first story, five-and-twenty on the second, and four towers at the corners. Buen Retiro itself was neither elegant nor substantial, built of the flimsiest materials, with small un-ornamental windows and long narrow Velazquez. 192 rooms, which seemed more suited for a monastery than for a temple of gaiety. It was still in the jejune cinquecento style, and the whole thing was said to have driven a nail in the coffin of the architect Crescenzi, compelled under protest to carry out Olivares’ instructions. In the waste ground is still seen a fragment of the quadrangle, the north wing with its corner tower forming the present Artillery Museum. This was the Salon de los Reinos with mirrored vaulted ceiling, gilded arabesques and abundant light from both sides. Here were held the last Cortes of 1789, which proclaimed the abolition of the Salic law. Northwards stretched the great plaza , or square, where were held the grand tournaments and bull-fights. But even this did not suffice, and for the festivities in honour of the king’s son-in-law (Ferdinard III.), elected to the imperial throne in 1637, here was laid out the so-called "Great Theatre,” or circus, a space of two hundred and thirty paces long by a hundred and ninety broad. A hill had to be levelled, and the best woodlands of the neighbourhood encroached upon to make room for the seats and stands, with the double row of balconies shimmering in silver and gold, hung with tapestries, and at night lit up with thousands of wax candles in glass lanterns. This group of structures lay open towards the Prado and the Capital, but was closed in by the park on all other sides. Eastwards stood the great cross-way, where covered passages converged on an octagonal space, the Ochavado , and chiefly on the verge of the park were scattered the ermitas , or "hermitages,” those of SS. Ines and Magdalen at the north end, elsewhere % those of SS. Bruno and John the Baptist, where Olivares resided and sought with the Alchemist Vincenzo Massimi the secret of gold-making. These hermitages were little villas, with shrines, watchtowers and aviaries, mazes grottoes, fishponds and other rural fancies. The most remarkable was that of St. Anthony in the south-east, in a lakelet, where is now the Fuente de la China. Besides numerous flower-gardens, some in the open, some enclosed within the courts, there were seven or eight ponds on terraces, connected by broad and deep canals, on which the gondolas plied. Of these water- works there still survives the great basin ( estanque grande ), one thousand and six feet by four hundred and forty-three feet, where water-nymphs and tritons were occasionally seen disporting themselves round about Galatea. But the glory of Buen Retiro was its theatre, where all the marvels of fancy seemed each in its turn to become realities. The fates had placed at Olivares’ disposal not only poets of undying fame, but also masters of scenic decoration unrivalled in Europe, and musicians who had been formed in Florence, birthplace of Italian Opera. From the etchings Buen Retiro. 193 of Callot and Israel Silvestre some idea may still be had of the spectacles exhibited in this place. In 1628 Cosimo Lotti, a pupil of Bartolotti, the inventor of theatrical shifting scenery, had arrived in Madrid accompanied by Pier Francesco Candolfi, as “ master carpenter,” and two gardeners from the Boboli Gardens. Lotti planned the theatre with the apparatus for opening the stage towards the park, where was seen a vista of flower-gardens and grottos illumined by artificial light, pageants, triumphal chariots and masquerades, perspectives of hovering groups as in the comedies of Daphne and Circe, and so forth. In Calderon’s Circe (August 1635) the islet in the great basin was transformed to a fairy-scene of groves with fountains and volcanoes, animals and shades of Avernus, where Circe on the dolphin-chariot rushed through the water to break the spell. Lotti also supplied the apparatus for the Maundy Thursday service and the “Forty Flours’ Devotion.” 1 After his death Ferdinand II. sent (1651) in his place the painter Baccio del Bianco (1604-56) a pupil of Galileo, who had formerly resided in Prague in the suite of Wallenstein. Baccio surpassed his predecessor in the boldness and never-failing success of his magic trans- formation scenes. Probably his greatest triumph was Calderon’s Perseus, where were conjured up marine views and shipwrecks, earthquakes, metamorphoses of women into statues and vice-versa, flying amorini, Vulcan’s smithy with Cyclopean hammers beating time to music, visions of Olympus and the like. At the sight of these marvellous stage effects Calderon himself was struck dumb, and hastening in alarm to the king suggested that his Majesty had better bring “bed and board” to the show, which must surely last eight days. But everything was got through in a few hours without a single hitch. The Perseus had “ a run ” of thirty- six nights and attracted “ pilgrims ” from a distance of two hundred miles. Now came the problem of fitting up these hastily executed structures in a manner worthy of a King of Spain, and of such a spoilt king as Philip. But although this second half of the task seemed more arduous than the first, Olivares was fully equal to the occasion. First of all the king was persuaded to lay his own residences under contribution ; only he w r ould allow nothing to be brought from the palaces of the Capital and the Pardo. But everything that was portable was removed from the palace and grounds of Valladolid, from Aranjuez, and even all the way from Lisbon. 1 This devotion of the Quarant' Ore , or “ Forty Hours,” was a special worship paid to the Host, or “ Blessed Sacrament,” exhibited to public adoration for that period. — Translator. 13 1 94 Velazquez. Although Philip II. had once promised that nothing should be taken from the palace in the Portuguese capital its rich tapestries were now spirited away, “ those hangings which that kingdom preserved in its pride and in memory of the greatness of its ancient princes, and which were the best things they had there.” 1 In 1634 they brought from Aranjuez Leone Leoni’s famous bronze statue of “ Charles V. with Heresy at his Feet ” and its removable armour; also those of his Queen Isabella, of Philip II. and his aunt Mary of Hungary, and in 1638 the antique busts. Now also the nobles, the farmers of the public revenues (mostly Genoese), the courtiers were invited to sell, or better still to present, their best artistic possessions. As Olivares personally accepted no gifts, we may readily imagine how relieved many must have been at this indirect way of obliging him ! The Hercules on whose brawny shoulders rested the burden of public affairs now listened more eagerly to reports about feasts of St. John or the Carnival, about costly cabinets, Florentine mosaic tables, and old tapestries than about business matters, any reference to which put him out of sorts. People beheld with amazement this stern, gloomy minister associating with buffoons and comedians. But many still trembled. The Auditor Tejeda had copies made of his best paintings, and really deceived the constable, although the fraud was discovered in the palace. The richest of these private collections was that of Leganes, whose treasures had been brought from Flanders, Germany, Italy — in fact from all quarters. These were now saved by his wife, who declared they were all a part of her dowry and her personal property ; so Leganes got off by the offer of a valuable piece of tapestry. The chapel was fitted up by the President of Castile. Don Fadrique of Toledo received nineteen thousand crowns for the porcelain furniture of an apartment, and twenty-five thousand for a carpet, but before parting he took care that the money was paid up. As luck would have it some good paintings came in just then, including some pickings from the twelve cartloads brought by Monterey from Naples (1633). The king’s brother Cardinal Ferdinand sent, in 1637, seven lifesize bronze statues symbolizing the seven planets, which had been taken during the French wars in Liege ; lastly, in the spring of 1638, the aynda de camara arrived with a waggon-load of a hundred and twelve paintings — mythologies, landscapes and genre pieces — which had been collected or executed for Buen Retiro. Then the native artists were engaged to paint large and small pictures. 1 Documeritos ineditos , lxix. 283. The allusion is probably to the “ Spheres.” Buen Retiro. i95 Olivares had discovered that the landscapes of Orrente, in the taste of Bassano, at that time so popular in Madrid, were well suited for the new palace, and accordingly got together as many as twenty, the best representing scenes from the Old Testament. The Madrid artist, Juan de la Corte (1597 — 1660), painted numerous mythological and biblical pieces as landscapes with figures as accessories, and some of these may still be seen in the retreat of Riofrio at San Ildefonso. But Juan was surpassed by Collantes, to judge at least from his Vision of Ezekiel with the Resurrection of the Dead in a landscape with ruins (1630) and his Burning of Troy now in the Granada Museum. A still more important commission for the Madrid artists was the illus- tration of the national triumphs during the great wars, in the midst of which these arts of peace were being fostered. The large historical works intended for the Sa/a del Reino comprised twelve battles and landings, sieges raised and strongholds stormed. Seven painters were here at work, celebrating the great deeds of nine living captains, whose glory, however, was concen- trated on the head of the count-duke, who had been chiefly instrumental in inducing the king to undertake these wars. Here were depicted vic- tories over the Dutch and English, over Protestant leagues and Italian confederacies, in the old and new world. And it was certainly remarkable that amid so much maladministration so many military successes could still be achieved. The selection of subjects had naturally been made by Olivares himself, while the artists were probably chosen by Velazquez and the king’s old drawing-master, Juan Bautista Maino. But for the earliest account of the undertaking we are indebted to the Florentine envoy Serrano (April 28, 1635), whose report here and there supplies data omitted by the inven- tory and by the description left us by Ponz (vi., 1 1 5). One piece, how- ever, is omitted in Serrano’s list — the Raising of the Siege of Valenza on the Po by Coloma. When the news of these successes arrived his report had already been made. The most remarkable of these works was Eugenio Caxesi’s Repulse of the English at Cadiz by Don Fernando Giron in 1625, now in the Prado (697). But in all of them the influence of Velazquez seems unmistakable, and here the success of his Moriscos had no doubt taught the painters a good lesson. He himself could scarcely have depicted Don Fernando Giron more to the life, while his palette is even suggested by Jose Leonardo’s two pieces — the Surrender of Breda (1625), and the Capture of Acqui (1626). The head of Don Carlos Coloma in the Siege of Valenza had been painted by Velazquez himself. Later he treated one of the subjects (the Breda piece) again, doubt- less because he was dissatisfied with Leonardo’s work, by the side of which 1 96 Velazquez. he exhibited his own. And thus it happened that Olivares’ undertaking gave the impulse to the best historical and military piece produced by the Spanish school. These twelve triumphs seemed to the controller of Spanish politics merely the preliminary to events of a far different character. In the very year in which we receive the first account of the undertaking war was declared against France. Yet even this struggle, which was destined for ever to break the power of Spain, was still attended by a few brilliant victories, which did but tend to strengthen Olivares’ faith in his luck-star ; for had not the Parisians in 1636 witnessed from the heights of Montmartre the smoke of the burning villages in Picardy, which proclaimed the approach of the cardinal-prince and of Thomas of Savoy ? And had not Conde’s forces been driven in headlong flight to their ships after they had effected a landing on Spanish soil in 1638 ? Such festivities as were now celebrated at Buen Retiro for national successes had never before been witnessed in Spain. In order to distract a moody prince, hundreds of thousands were often squandered on a single evening, while the troops were starving in Flanders, "the cockpit of Europe,’’ and on the plains of Lombardy ; and while commanders were obliged to give up their plans of campaign for lack of support from Madrid. Dazzled by this glit- tering "insubstantial pageant,” the good Madrilehos fancied the times of Charles V. had come back, and been even eclipsed. The year 1638 was vaunted as the most glorious of the present reign, and the close of this annus mirabilis was commemorated by the performance of a play entitled Las victorias del ano 1638 ! Yet the very next year this Feast of Belshazzar was suddenly lit up by the lurid flame of the writing on the wall, which in the loss of Portugal and the revolt in Catalonia announced the rupture of the empire bequeathed by Philip II. to his feeble posterity. Park Views. Some contemporary paintings are still extant which give views of various points in the gardens of Buen Retiro as well as of the older parks. A few of those in the former Salamanca collection had at least the merit of correct prospects. If the style of gardening were somewhat formal, no " fashionable ennui ” prevailed amongst the general public. Amid the fountains, bowers and classical temples the tame deer moved fearlessly about; on the grassy carpets sat the ladies plucking flowers and wreathing chaplets, or thrumming on their guitars as they lent an ear to the highflown gallantries of demonstrative cavaliers. Park Views. >97 The more open and picturesque prospects are by the inventories attributed to Velazquez. Although mostly of a very sketchy nature and also darkened, they still suffice to reveal what hovered before the painter’s eye, and even yet awaken memories of all the charms of southern garden scenery. They show a marked falling off from the large, clear, bright landscapes of the equestrian pictures, in the dull brown tone especially of the foliage. The blurred and roughly suggested figures also contrast unfavourably with those more delicately drawn in the hunting-pieces. They betray a resemblance to FOUNTAIN OF THE TRITONS, ARANJUEZ . landscapes by Mazo, from which, however, they are distinguished by their less studied beautiful invention. Two badly preserved sketches (Nos. mi and 1112) are supposed to refer to Buen Retiro. Behind a balustrade, on the middle of which a peacock is perched, the large basin is displayed, the margins distinctly mirrored in its still surface. At the bank is moored a boat with red-capped rowers ; to the left stands a cavalier, towards whom a lady extends her hand from underneath her mantle, while over against them a white marble statue looks down from its pedestal. The pendent piece gives a view from the terrace of a white palace with two V ELAZQUEZ. I98 wings. In the foreground is Jupiter with the thunderbolt, a couple are leaning against the balustrade of the terrace ; in the foreground to the left a woman in a slashed dress is seated on the grass with a child and basket of roses in front. Two other much larger and more fully worked-out park views transport us to the islet at Aranjuez, that oasis in the Castilian wilderness which had been created by Philip II. No. 1 109 gives a view of the famous Fountain of the Tritons, which in its dilapidated state has now been set up near the palace in the Jardin del Moro. A cluster of slender white alders twined round and round with ivy and forming a kind of trellis, through which streams the light blue and the golden sunset of a clear sky, encircles and beshadows a large square basin. A triangular socle in the centre supports a gigantic shell, from which boldly springs a white marble fountain, which at the time was fed by water from the Tagus. Groups of columns encircled by nymphs as Caryatides bear two conchs, the lower with a relief of swimming sirens clinging to dolphins. At the summit a marble figure ejects the jet of water which falls back into the topmost basin, and thence overflows in silvery threads into the lower shell; from this the water again streams into voluted conchs, which are borne on the shoulders of three tritons, their right arms leaning on shields. Four other smaller jets of water spurt up from the four corners of the square basin. From the inscription on the pediment it appears that this Fountain of the Tritons was here erected by the king in the year 1657. On the moss-grown roots of the tree in the foreground is seated a lady, to whom her cavalier is presenting a wreath of roses. Two others, who also proudly display their bare necks, are seated on the grass busy with a large flower-basket — perhaps nymphs of Flora, " who here holds sway and strews all her treasures about.” So we know it is springtide, for the flowers soon perish in the glowing summer sun. From the fountain approaches a maiden with roses in her frock, while to the right a Franciscan friar stands convers- ing with a gentleman in a black mantle. Here the birds trill so loudly that the speakers need fear no eavesdroppers. Quite inexplicable is the proportion between fountain and figures, for those in the foreground are smaller than the scarcely lifesize statues farther back. This circumstance, as well as the dull tone, might suggest that Mazo, with his artless disregard for perspective, may have had a hand in the work. The second picture (No. 1110) brings us to the entrance to the Calle de la Relna, or “ Queen’s Walk,” a perfectly straight avenue twenty-two feet The Surrender of Breda. 199 broad and a good mile long, lined all the way by mighty elms “ much higher,” says Gramont, “ than any I ever saw in the Netherlands.” They meet over- head, forming a tunnel impenetrable to the sun’s rays ; but at one end the gloom is pierced by a single sunny beam. Contemporary travellers tell us that it was impossible to see right through, and Boisel riding along came to a spot where you could not see to the end either way. The avenue begins at the palace gate, and is twice crossed by the Tagus before merging in the thicket, “ where noble elms and weeping willows bend over the still surface of the water.” This is the point with the stream glittering to the left that our artist has seized. Three “ sixes-in-hand ” between a double line of cavaliers are about to pass the barriers drawn aside by park rangers. But the picture has become quite darkened. 1 Two small pictures which Consul Meade is said to have brought with others from Spain (Curtis, p. 63), and which I saw in Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell’s residence in London, are apparently studies of figures for such park views. They were thought much of by Thore, who praises the rarete exquise, puis- sance de ton , the fragrance as of a tropical flowering plant, the human interest of the scene — two ladies seated on the grass in conversation with a cavalier, a lady and a gentleman seated facing each other, and a second lady turning her back on them : quite a little romance ! To me, however, they seemed broader, darker and duller than similar groups of the master. The Surrender of Breda. (El Cuadro de las Lanzas .) Amongst the few large compositions by our master this work unquestion- ably takes the foremost place for the interest of the subject, although the connoisseur may be more captivated by the delicate pictorial effect of others. In this work also the human soul in the artist appeals to us more sympatheti- cally than elsewhere. On the time of its production accurate information is still lacking, and it is introduced in this place chiefly on account of the subject, for it was one of the military pieces in the Salon de los Reinos in Buen Retiro. The siege of Breda was regarded as the most brilliant strategic event of the period, a chapter in the history of siege tactics comparable to the investment and capture of Ostend — hitherto the greatest achievement of the kind by the same famous captain. For the renewed aggressive policy against the States-General it was a first success of the highest promise. 1 Size of No. mi, 1-47 x 1-14111. ; of 1112, 1-48 x rn m. ; of 1109, 1-48 x 2-23 m ; of 1 1 10, 2-45 x 2-02 m. 200 Velazquez. Breda, in North Brabant — near the frontier of Holland proper, and looked on as “the right eye of the Netherlands” — had been occupied in 1567 by Alba, ten years afterwards recovered by Holach, and again seized by Haute- penne. But in 1590 this “bulwark of Flanders,” as the Spaniards called it, had fallen by treachery into the power of the Orange party, in whose hands it had become a thorn in their side, the “ refuge of conspirators,” an advanced post against Brabant, and a menace to Antwerp. SURRENDER OF BREDA. Breda was the seat of the Orange family, who here owned a fine strongly fortified castle with a well-kept park, which Maurice called his “ Vale of Tempe.” In the church was a sumptuous monument to the memory of Engelbert II., general of Charles V.; and here William of Orange had received Prince Philip on the occasion of his visit to Flanders in 1552. Naturally a 'strong position, it had in recent years been made a model fortress, held by a garrison of veterans and containing a military academy frequented by English, French and German students. The Surrender of Breda. 201 In 1624 the Spanish party clearly saw that something must be done ; and just then the opportune suspension of hostilities in Germany enabled them to concentrate their forces in this direction. At the same time the idea of attack- ing a fortress supposed to be impregnable met with almost universal opposition in military circles. But Spinola — who was said to have received the laconic message from Madrid : “ Marques, sumais Breda. Yo el Rey .” — first made a feint movement against Grave, and then suddenly surprised his officers by ordering a forced march on Breda. For a time the enterprise gave rise to feelings of contempt, for Spinola found himself simultaneously confronted by the army of Maurice of Nassau and the garrison which never missed a shot. A ball struck his tent, another carried away some portions of his charger’s bridle, while the work of procuring provisions for the camp presented enormous difficulties. His power of endurance was almost superhuman, and after all was over he himself attributed his success solely to his watchfulness ( vigilantia ). Maurice died before the end of the siege, his last anxious thoughts given to Breda. In May, when the supplies were running short, his successor, Henry Frederick, made an attempt to relieve the besieged, but had to retire after a sanguinary combat. The eyes of the world were directed to this point, where were engaged Italians, Germans, and French, as well as Netherlanders and Spaniards ; where the prize of victory seemed to be a kingdom rather than a strong- hold. And when the place at last yielded, Spinola recognized the valour and endurance of his opponents by granting the most honourable terms ever yet conceded to a captured garrison. The aged governor, Justin of Nassau, with all his officers and men, “ as became a brave foe, were allowed to march out with all arms and in good order, the infantry with flags flying and drums beating, guns loaded to the muzzle with lighted fuse ; cavalry with flying streamers, trumpets blowing, armed and mounted as in the field.” Other concessions were four guns, two mortars, all the movable effects of the Orange family, a general amnesty for the citizens, and so forth. This capitulation was signed on June 2, 1625, and the evacuation and delivery of the keys took place three days afterwards. The garrison, with the governor on horseback, marched out through the Hertogenbosch Gate, the procession being headed and closed by the cavalry, which however had lost nearly all its mounts. In other respects the troops were in excellent condition, presenting even a better figure than the besieging army. The march took the direction of the Baron de Balanqon’s quarters, where Spinola awaited the governor surrounded by princes, nobles, and mounted officers, and where the ceremony took place as depicted in this painting. 202 V ELAZQUEZ. The tidings which reached Madrid on June 15, gave rise to such an out- burst of jubilation as had not been witnessed since the victory of Lepanto. The Te Dcum was sung in all the churches ; Spinola received the Castilian Commandery of the Order of St James; but the .Spaniards ascribed the results to their “ invincible power, - ’ and Olivares exclaimed, with a side glance at the Venetian envoy : “ This success has been achieved in the teeth of the whole world;” a sentiment which pervades the historical drama produced by Calderon on this occasion. The Spanish captains and their men, their wild bellicose spirit, their scorn of other nations and hatred of heretics, their humour proof against every trial, could be adequately described only by a true poet who had himself made the campaign. About the year 1630 the palace already possessed two large representations of the event, but somewhat of a topographic character, like Jacque Callot’s large etching based on the sketches which he took in the camp soon after the surrender of the fortress. One of the Alcazar pieces represented the Marquis de Leganes holding a document describing the event ; the other showed in the foreground the Infanta Isabella after the surrender, being a companion piece to the Siege of Ostend, now in the Prado (1675). Mention also occurs of a smaller representation, and the Prado still possesses two similar works (1671 and 16750), belonging to a series of Dutch siege-pieces by the painter Peeter Snayers. One gives a military perspective of Breda and neighbourhood ; the other, in which the heads of the historical figures have been touched up by some one personally acquainted with them, passes for the work mentioned in the inventory of 1636. But a pictorial record by Madrid talent was not undertaken for Buen Retiro till ten years after the event. This was by the Aragonese, Jose Leonardo, a pupil of Eugenio Caxesi, whose co-operation may perhaps be taken for granted, Jose being at the time only nineteen years old. Here the figures of Spinola, Leganes, Justin of Nassau, and the inevitable buffoon, are all excellent studies ; but the scattered composition lacks the dignity and solemnity one expects to find in the treatment of such a subject. The two commanders meet as if casually, still the governor kneels as a suppliant whose fate hangs on the favour of the conqueror. According to the statement made by eye-witnesses both had dismounted, and Spinola awaited the arrival of Justin surrounded b}' a “crown” of princes and officers of high birth. The governor then presented himself with his family, kinsfolk and distinguished students of the military academy, who had been shut up in the place during the siege. Spinola greeted and embraced his vanquished opponent with a kindly expression and still more kindly words, in which he praised the courage and endurance of the protracted defence. The Surrender oe Breda. 203 But the objections, that were doubtless made to the manner in which the subject had hitherto been treated, would probably have produced no better edition of the Surrender of Breda, but for the stimulus of special personal intervention. During the voyage from Barcelona to Genoa, in 1629, Velaz- quez and Spinola had been thrown closely together. The artist must also have been more deeply affected than others by the tragic result of the siege of Casale, which occurred soon after the voyage, and in describing which even indifferent contemporary writers tell us in feeling terms how Spinola was shamefully sacrificed ; and how, mortified at the slur cast on his military honour, he soon after sank with gloomy thoughts into the grave. With true poetic feeling is couched Quevedo’s sonnet on the catastrophe : — En Flandes dijo tu valor tu ausencia, E11 Italia tu muerte ; y nos dejaste, Spinola, Dolor sin resistencia. 1 Our painter also desired in his modest way to raise a monument to one of the most humane captains of the day, by giving permanence to his true figure in a manner of which he alone had the secret. He had perhaps taken a sketch of the general on board the ship, although he had certainly not yet contemplated a work of this sort, for he would otherwise surely have offered to co-operate in the execution of those military pieces for Buen Retiro. Now, however, he probably wished to show how such a subject should be pictorially treated. Here we have no longer the somewhat narrow delicate head of the Ostend period, nor his aspect in the prime of life with the air of calm in- telligence seen in Mierevelt’s picture. It is rather the grey-haired head with high forehead, with which the beautiful portraits by Rubens, and especially by Van Dyck, have made us familiar. 2 In Madrid he had had frequent attacks of fever, from which he only slowly recovered. But Velazquez knew how to breathe into the features that inner life also which reveals itself to the artist only during the closest intimacy. The composition also is determined by that principle of unity, that simplicity which lay in the very nature of the man. He gives us nothing but the central movement of the delivery of the keys, and the accessories immediately associated with that action ; even the fortress is banished from the scene, all but a suggestion on the left side of the canvas. On the other 1 “ In Flanders thy absence, in Italy thy death, proclaimed thy worth ; and grief o’erwhelming, Spinola, to us thou bequeath’dst.” 2 Spinola was several times painted by Van Dyck. The specimen from the Balbi Palace in Genoa and some others are now in England, and were seen at the Van Dyck Exhibition of 1887. The engraving in the Iconography is by Lucas Vorsterman. 204 Velazquez. hand the two commanders are conspicuous, both with a crowded following, which, in the observer’s imagination, stretch away in thousands beyond the frame of the picture ; for the space is so filled as to give the impression of multitudes, without, however, detracting from the significance of the proceeding. The governor, at the head of the infantry, which formed the centre ot the march out, had reached the quarters at Tetteringen, where Spinola was expecting him. Here both dismount, and the throng stands back, silently doffing their hats. The gesture of the Fleming standing in the light, to whom a comrade whispers something, seems to impose silence. Justin approaches, but Spinola advances to meet him, bending forward and laying his hand on the shoulder of the governor, who addresses him and holds out the keys. In Spinola’s expression and gesture are blended an aristocratic elegance and natural kindliness with Italian refinement. The victorious captain has a fellow-feeling for the brave man who is reduced to this sad extremity, and endeavours to remove the bitterness of the situation. Even those ignorant of the circumstances will gather from the picture itself a record of the event. The head of the marquis, says Imbert, has a character of graciousness and urbanity almost enough to wish one might lose a citadel for the pleasure of handing him its keys . 1 The words uttered on the occasion have not been recorded, but Calderon’s verses may well be based on correct report. Justin of Nassau, says the poet, spoke of the pain of the incident, without denying that in such an issue he saw nothing but all-ruling fate, which overthrows the proudest monarchies. Then Spinola praised his valour, adding, that in the courage of the vanquished lies the fame of the victor. And here the governor looks up attentively, and as if surprised, at his generous conqueror. The figure, however, can hardly be intended for a portrait of Justin, who was at that time an old man insigni canitic vencrabilis (Hugo). The choice of a purely human and noble sentiment, as the most prominent motive, is a feature which would not have occurred to everybody. In the same way in Alexander’s Victory, which resembles this work in more points than the lances and horses, the Greek painter raises the prostrate Darius, who forgets his own distress in that of the vassal sacrificing himself for his sovereign. The names of those in the immediate vicinity of the general may perhaps be identified from the records and some otherwise known likenesses. They were : Prince Wolfgang von Neuburg, Don Gonzalo of Cordova, Count Salazar, Count Henry van den Bergh (Vergas) and two 1 LEspagne (Paris : 1875), p. 212. The Surrender of Breda. 205 Saxon princes ; after whom came thirty superior officers. Here, however, the painter might allow himself a certain latitude, without too much regard for historic accuracy. The old man on the left, resting with both hands on a stick, is perhaps the officer in command where the transaction takes place, Albert Arenbergh, Baron of Balangon, commander of the Flemish cavalry. The second, in armour, might from the features be Wolfgang, although in his portrait by Van Dyck the forehead is not yet so bald. The old man with the long head behind him reminds one of Don Carlos Coloma, head of the infantry, who had risen from the ranks, but whose name does not occur in this connection. The young man on the right of the horse is certainly not Velazquez himself. The fact that he keeps his hat on shows that he is excluded from the inner circle. The governor’s suite was naturally somewhat less brilliant. He was accompanied by Charles Philip le Comte, his wife, sons and nephews, and a Son of Prince Emmanuel of Portugal. Owing to the diagonal lie of the axis this group is brought into a position turned from the spectator. The artist necessarily placed the Dutch party on this side, because here he had scarcely any but troopers for his models. The effects of a twelve-months’ siege are little apparent in these Dutch soldiers, to whom their opponents paid an open tribute of admiration. An ordinary artist would have made the eyes of the assistants converge on the two central figures, adding perhaps the language of some trite oratorical gestures. But here, apart from the groom turning eagerly round, there is nothing of this sort in the Spanish group, except the aged officer pointing with his stick to the governor. He naturally wants for once to have a good look at the fine fellows who have shot away his leg. All the others are looking in various directions, and this is what Passavant calls a “ scattered composition." But where the ear is so greatly interested, the glance is turned aside, lest the concentrated psychic effort to catch the words be distracted by the eye. The Spaniards, with their characteristic phlegm, scarcely betray any inward emotion in their outward bearing, whereas the attitude of the Netherlander is more animated. It need scarcely be pointed out how horses, costumes, and arms are reproduced in colour and texture with the unerring touch of the expert. The wide loose Dutch fashion could hardly have been hit off better by Franz Hals himself. How suggestive, for instance, are the boots of Justin contrasted with those of Spinola ! Every historical painter must envy Velazquez such a costume, or at least the inestimable advantage of ob- serving people moving about in this attire. Nowadays nothing is left the 206 Velazquez. artist except the choice between archaeological puppets and unpicturesque fashions, which in a few years become ridiculous. Passing from this inner and central group, the observer notices behind the Spaniards a line of lance-bearers together with ensigns and flute- players. Not being within hearing, they turn their back on the scene and look on at those marching past. A somewhat peculiar effect is produced by the twenty-nine almost vertical ashwood lances, which give an alternative name to the picture, and which cut off over a third of sky and landscape. They have been considered in bad taste ; but at sight of them every Spanish heart was thrilled. Their rigid symmetry was the symbol of that discipline which had so long made the Spanish infantry the terror of Europe. Not many years had elapsed since the exhibition of Jose Leonardo’s first painting (1626), when this "iron cornfield,” to use Calderon’s metaphor, was mowed down by Conde at the battle of Rockroy (1643), never to rise again. Notwithstanding the fulness of the foreground, the artist has contrived to make room for a far-reaching perspective, and this background is one of the features of the work that have been most admired. In the space opening between the two groups we behold the garrison marching by in the bright light of this morning in June, and closed in behind by the serried ranks of the Spanish lance-bearers. The middle distance is cut off by a redoubt of the inner lines; on the left, thick volumes of smoke roll up from a great bonfire where banners are fluttering and figures moving about. The distant objects somewhat clouded in the misty atmosphere of these watery lowlands are disposed with topographical accuracy, just as on the large canvas by Snayers. The point in the middle is Paul Baglioni’s headquarters, and the water on the left with the intersecting dyke (the “black dam”), is a part of the artificial inundation, by which Spinola hoped to ward off the attacks of the relieving forces. On the plain behind we see the silvery streak of the Merk, which after its confluence with the rivulet Aa at Breda winds away north and west to the Maas estuary ; but the open sea, over forty miles distant, lies of course beyond the horizon. All is as if Nature herself breathed again a new life, wafting a promise of peace and hope on the morning breeze. Touching the artistic merits of the work, Mengs remarks that it “contains all the perfection of which the subject was capable, and all is expressed with the highest mastery,” from which encomium he excepts the lances alone. The impression of a great multitude is produced with The Surrender of Breda. 207 few figures, and that of a boundless expanse is realized on a very narrow surface. In this respect the genial colourist has contributed as much as the skilful draughtsman. The composition combines a transparency of narrative clear as crystal with all the properties of pictorial grouping — balance of the masses, where uniformity is relieved by the diagonal disposition, concentration of the interest in the chief persons accompanied by gradual subordination of all the others. The system of colouring is analogous to that of the equestrian portraits. Sky and distant prospect with their broad, cool green-blue surfaces, permeated by the white shimmer of water and powdery vapour, form a background for the warm figures of the foreground saturated with colour, and toned with red-brown shadows away to the powerful charger in the corner to the right. Here also provision is made for light patches— in the prince with his white sunlit doublet, recalling Rembrandt’s “Night Watch;” in the glitter of armour and the sheen of gold-embroidered silk; in the white mantle of the figure closing the group on the right ; in the white and light-blue checkered banner. The strongest luminous opening is relegated to the central middle distance where the troops are filing past, and this gives at the same time the light background for the two chief figures. The light comes from the left, consequently from the south-east (for the surrender took place about ten o’clock in the morning), and thus falls on the face of the Spaniards, the brightest point being Spinola’s forehead. All is bathed in a breezy circumambient atmosphere. It is a military ceremony, the closing scene of a long series of struggles, in which two mighty antagonists contended with each other, putting forth the full strength of human will and wit combined with all the resources of Nature. All is here centred in this supremely pathetic incident, all that these strong, skilful, brave men have achieved, with yonder stronghold as the prize of victory. But the ever-widening circle of thoughts suggested by the event expands far into the past and future. Velazquez’ figures, here more than elsewhere representative, throw a flash of light across the whole picture of that mighty struggle of two peoples and, two religions for the empire of the world. Here was solemnized by the hand of a Spanish Court painter a Spanish success gained by the combined efforts of four nations under the leadership of a Genoese captain. This Spanish generalissimo pays a compliment to the gallantry of a Dutch commander, that is, in the eyes of his State, a champion of heresy and revolt. The grandson of that Philip, who armed the hand of the assassin to strike down 2oS Velazquez. the great William of Orange (William the Silent), had now commissioned his Court painter to execute this work, in which a successor of the san- guinary Alva greets and flatters a scion of the House of Orange. Was it Velazquez’ intention thus to give expression to the already dawning sentiment that was soon realized by the recognition of the sovereignty of the United Provinces? But be that as it may, it is strange that Waagen should venture to assert, after visiting the Madrid Museum, that Velazquez “was altogether wanting in those qualities required for the execution of works coming within the province of the higher intellectual sphere of Art,” as shown in his religious and mythological paintings. Now what is meant by this “ higher intellectual sphere of Art ? ” Is it that fanciful and ostentatious style as flaunted on the ceiling of that gold-bedizened apartment in the Palazzo Serra at Genoa, where Ambrosius Spinola, like a second Elias, soars heavenward between allegorical “ladies?" And should Velazquez in the same way have introduced, say, Minerva with the Cock, Hercules with a spade, or the river-god Merka ? But although it contains nothing of this, few other historical paintings display more mind, few give more food for thought, still fewer reveal more manifestly the artist of truly noble spirit. It happens somewhat exceptionally that several sketches for individual figures are still extant. In the collection of the National Library there is a crayon on white paper, where the outlines are rather vaguely essayed than drawn in decided lines. The chief figure is the groom behind Spinola’s horse, and near him to the right, but only half the size, the young man listening, who here raises two fingers. On the reverse of the same sheet is Spinola himself, but much smaller, in quite faint, blurred contour. On the other hand the drawing in the Louvre from Mariette’s collection is in clean, firm outline, and may have been the first study. Here we may see the horse and the chief group with the Spanish gentleman, but without the Dutch half. The so-called coloured sketch, known from Theophile Gautier’s spirited description, is only one of those copies which so often turn up, as indeed may be gathered from the description itself. But those who delight in discoveries of this sort may be recommended to look at the sketch in the Belvedere (1163) representing the meeting of the Cardinal- Prince Ferdinand with his namesake and relative, the King of Hungary, on the eve of the battle of Nordlingen (September 2, 1634). Here we have the same diagonal disposition, the two chief figures bending forward, the groups of officers, the horse with the groom on the right. The Surrender of Breda. 209 The original was a decorative piece sketched by Rubens, on the occasion of the cardinal’s entry into Antwerp in May 1635, and the cardinal may have had a copy made and brought to Madrid, where Velazquez would have seen it. But on the other hand, how easily such a simple form of composition might independently suggest itself, as we see even in Benjamin West’s Landing of Charles II. at Dover. Mention first occurs of the Surrender of Breda in the inventory of Buen Retiro for 1702, where it is valued at five hundred doubloons; after 1772 it appears in the new palace — the name of Leganes, however, being substituted for that of Spinola ; and in the inventory for 1789 it is taxed at one hundred and twenty thousand reals. But hitherto no records have been discovered that might throw some light on the origin of the work, the date 1647 being purely conjectural. This question of date is not so readily answered. Judging from the nature of the subject, its second treatment after Jose Leonardo’s essay, would seem best to suit the warlike and hopeful spirit prevailing during the fourth decade of the century. But the style points apparently to a later period, the breadth and freedom of touch proclaiming our master’s third manner. Yet that signed and dated portrait of Admiral Pulido, which is given by Palomino as an example of his free and bold manner ( Valentin ), and in which the impression of distance is produced by long strokes of a bristly brush, was already executed in the year 1639. When we cast about for works painted after the same system, the eye is naturally arrested by the equestrian pieces, and of these the only work bearing a certain date is that of Prince Balthasar, produced so early as 1635. Olivares’ equestrian portrait must have been executed some five years before his fall (January 1643), while that of Philip IV. most nearly resembling it can scarcely be later than 1638, although on mistaken grounds referred to the next decade. The year 1647, assigned to the Breda picture, consequently seems much too late. To turn out such a complex piece of work, as it were, at one cast, the artist would necessarily have recourse to a more resolute, a more vigorous and solid treatment than was his wont. It has been remarked that here he works with exclusively local colours, at once deep, mellow, delicate and limpid ; scarcely two faces can be found painted with the same tint. Hunting and Hunting-pieces. About the same time that Olivares had planned and executed the Villa of Buen Retiro for his sovereign, Philip himself had devised a little 14 2 IO Velazquez. retreat according to his own taste, which differed greatly from his minister’s creation. It was of modest proportions, cost little, lay in a secluded part of the woodlands, was accessible only to his most intimate associates, and was to be enriched with a grand series of new paintings by a few of the best artists, and dealing with subjects also of his own suggestion. In the extensive deer-park of El Pardo, 1 there stood a very old hunting- seat, which had been rebuilt by Charles V. It took the form of a little square fortress with towers at the four corners, while its ivy-clad walls and the broad moat laid out with flower-beds gave it an aspect more in harmony with its destination. Here was once the incomparable portrait gallery of Philip II.’s contemporaries; but since the destructive fire of 1608 nothing of the old paintings remains, except a few frescoes by Becerra and his associates. Half a mile to the east of this place the Emperor had erected a tower, the so-called Torre de la Parada, as a resting-place on his excursions to the forests of Balsain high up in the Sierra. This tower Philip now enclosed with a two-storied structure, which appears to have been planned about the year 1635. Both retreats, as well as Cardinal Ferdinand’s Zarzuela, which gave its name to a new style of musical drama, stood in the heart of a primeval hunting-ground much frequented by the early Kings of Castile and Leon. Here were still held in Philip IV.’s time the three grand royal hunts, which lasted eight days, and which cost altogether eighty thousand crowns. The scenes painted by Velazquez are amongst the most trustworthy and clearest records of the old Spanish hunting-parties, the accounts of which read otherwise like ancient texts needing copious explanatory notes and commentaries. The Spaniards prided themselves on the courage and skill displayed in these national sports, in which all the nobles and even the ladies took an active part. Portraits are extant of royal princesses with battues filling up the background. When bears were reported in the Manzanares preserves, Isabella the Catholic and Ferdinand turned out, equipped with spears and darts ; Isabella and Catalina, daughters of Philip II., slew with ashen clubs the wolves, which, however, were first safely ensnared 1 Not to be confused, as is so often done, with the Prado of Madrid. The village of El Pardo stood, and still stands, on the left bank of the Manzanares, nearly due north of, and about six miles from, the Capital. The district was formerly remark- able for its sylvan beauty, but most of the timber has long disappeared.— Translator. Hunting-pieces. 2 1 1 in nets. But the ladies usually preferred rabbit-shooting with spaniels and matchlocks. But although the love of sport was universal, the royal parties were reserved for the more intimate Court circles, even foreign guests at Buen Retiro or elsewhere being seldom invited. An exception, however, was made in the case of the hunts got up at El Pardo, to which crowds flocked from the neighbouring capital. The chief royal hunting-grounds at that time were the Escorial, Balsain (later St. Ildefonso), Escalona, Ventosilla del Tago, Toledo, and especially Aranjuez, where fallow-deer, black game, and partridges were so superabundant that for. a circuit of twenty-five or thirty miles the country “ looked like a zoological garden.” Philip IV. was the most energetic and reckless hunter of the period, and in this department even an innovator. While a mere stripling thirteen years old, mounted on his favourite Guijarrillo, he had speared a wild boar, and in advanced years he again earned the thundering applause of the company by repeating the exploit in El Pardo. One famous crack shot at a bull-fight in Madrid formed the subject of a special memoir, and according to a good authority writing in 1644, he had at that time already knocked over more than four hundred wolves, six hundred stags, besides fallow-deer, and one hundred and fifty wild boar, completely beating all previous records of Spanish sport. Another writer relates that the king introduced a new and bold method of “ pig-sticking,” against the advice of everybody ; while the most daring hunters at that time followed with a pack of twenty bloodhounds and two or three greyhounds, he dispensed with the latter, and retained but few of the former. Hunting had its records of heroic deeds, its trophies, and stirring adventures, which the pictorial Art had always been regarded as the most effective means of chronicling. Hence works of this sort belonged to that branch of secular painting which had from early times been sedulously cultivated in Spain, and which found its proper home in the royal hunting castles. But these Spanish compositions should evidently be distinguished from those hunting scenes of artists like Paul de Vos, Rubens, or Snyders conceived from the purely pictorial standpoint, to which they bear somewhat the same relation that chronicles do to historical novels. In the inventories of the old Pardo collection are entered wolf, bear, lion, tiger, ibex, and buffalo hunts, netting winged game, and lastly rabbit- shooting — to this day the most popular of all. There are also tapestries representing similar scenes. But the most important of the historical pieces were the two large royal hunts by Lucas Cranach, which, in 1544, the 2 I 2 Velazquez. Elector John Frederick of Saxony, had arranged in the park at Morizburg in honour of the emperor and other princes of the empire. These are now in the Prado Museum (1304 and 1305), and replicas in the Castle of Morizburg. None of the emperor’s successors employed artists to illustrate their hunting experiences so frequently as Philip IV. These were in fact the great events of his existence, and were duly described by the envoys in their despatches. At the end of a boar-hunt in the Pardo, where the animal “ had defended himself like a lion and ripped up all the horses,” the king, who had splintered a lance in its body, remarked to the attendant nobles : “ This is one of the most memorable days in the annals of the chase.” A proof of the reputation enjoyed by the Flemish painters is the fact that they were also commissioned to execute some of these commemorative scenes, the indispensable details being furnished from Madrid. Thus the Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand engaged Pieter Snayers to paint such subjects in Antwerp (1637), remarking in a letter to the king that Velada had the greatest difficulty in making the rough sketches intelligible to the painter. In one of these the hunters are introduced merely as accessories in an inviting bluish-wooded landscape, which presents more of a Flemish than a Castilian aspect. Velazquez also had occasionally to paint the remarkable antlers of stags “bagged” by the king. The inventories of 1636 and 1686 mention a cuerna de venado (“ deer-horns ”), painted in oil, with a ticket : “This was killed by our Lord Philip IV.” Godoy, the “Prince of Peace,” had in his collection “ an old shepherd with a dead vixen at his feet,” presumably by Velazquez. The Boar-hunt. To the more formal hunting parties connected with Court festivities distinguished foreign guests were usually invited, as, for instance, the Duchess of Chevreuse in January 1638, and the Princess of Carignan in 1640. The latter is described in great detail by the Tuscan envoy, and these were the only two of the grand entertainments that genuine artists were called upon to represent. For the execution of such royal hunting scenes the aid of Flemish artists had to be dispensed with. The peculiar usages, the multitude of living persons who had to be introduced, required a special knowledge of the national sport as well as the surety of touch of a great portrait painter, combined with the genius of a Callot for the proper distribution of hun- The Boar-hunt. 213 dreds of figures on a greatly reduced scale. Few works probably cost our master so much trouble as paintings of this class. For no others do we find so many preliminary studies, especially for the groups of onlookers, which have occasionally been taken for and described as independent compositions. The royal bespeaker would insist upon an exact picture, like an instantaneous photograph, and this is precisely what they look like. But a man like Velazquez was no mere illustrator of official “ gazettes,” and painters alone can appreciate how much concealed Art and calculation are contained in these studies. Some of the figures might serve equally well as sketches for large portraits. The royal collections formerly contained several large boar-hunts, amongst them two at least which were assigned to Velazquez. But the origin and vicissitudes of the few still extant can no longer be determined with certainty. As might be expected, all have gravitated to England, the present classic land of sport. Such a work is probably the large painting for the Torre de la Parada, to which he alludes in a petition for payment of arrears, dated October 16, 1636, and pleading mucha necesidad. “ Boar-hunting,” writes the Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand, "is the greatest of all” (1638). Long and comprehensive preparations were required for the proper organization of such an event, a monteria de jabali en tela cerradap as it was called. A portion of the preserve w j as enclosed with canvas fencing, “ as with a wall,” and the game decoyed by food or bait placed at some convenient spot. Such telas (“ cloths ”) Charles V. had already introduced from Germany, and with them this method of hunting — a costly pastime which royalty alone could afford to indulge in. The strips, thirty-six to forty paces long, were joined together by wooden buttons, and suspended by rings to deal stakes with hooks, the lower edge being buried in the ground. As many as twelve, and later twenty, waggon-loads of canvas were needed, which Olivares imported from Flanders. An entrance two hundred paces wide was left open, and when a sufficient number of animals were secured, carefully closed. In 1638 forty were thus allured, and of these the eight strongest selected. Then within the outer enclosure a kind of central arena a hundred paces in diameter was prepared, without any openings and if possible swampy, and this contratela or serraglio 2 as the Italians called it, was fitted with a double canvas three ells high. The oak trees were lopped to give the horses and riders head room. Such a contratela is seen on the picture disposed like a crater round an 1 “A boar-hunt in canvas enclosure .” 2 That is, literally, a “lock-up,” from serra, a bolt or bar. — T ranslator. 214 Velazquez. amphitheatrical glen or depression. On the opposite side rises the steep slope, rent with gorges and overgrown with gloomy oaks ; here and there the sunlight is reflected by the exposed patches of yellow sand ; in the centre the clear space opens out, where several groups of mounted hunters have room to gallop about, stirring up clouds of dust ; in front is a narrow strip of foreground with a motley fringe of rangers on the watch, and groups of distinguished spectators ; above the whole a canopy of blue sky, with dazzling white cloudlets. At the time of Philip II. the nobles appeared in the arena armed with tucks or rapiers to do battle with the boar. But in our representation they have exchanged this weapon for the horquilla or media luna, a kind of pitchfork with pine shaft and short prongs, like the garrochon of the bull-fighters — that of the king being gilded. With this implement the animal was turned aside from the horses, perhaps to prolong the sport, and give an opportunity for the display of skill and strength. They were thus driven up and down, pursued, turned aside, wounded, until they became too exhausted to make any further resistance. Then huntsmen appeared on foot with the whole pack of alanos, or mastiffs, and other hounds, and despatched the game ; in the evening hunters and pack all assembled under the king’s windows to receive the offal. Thus the chase is a kind of battue, just as in bull-fights the picadores and banderillas precede the espada, only here the matador is the chief figure. In our picture the king has just thrust his horquilla into the flank of a boar tearing furiously by. When the shaft broke the master of the hounds (the Constable of Castile) handed him another, and at the hunt given in honour of the Duchess of Chevreuse he used up a dozen. Here the heroes of the day are very slightly sketched, but we at once recognize Philip IV. from the few touches suggesting his face ; he keeps to the right owing to the proximity of the ladies, and by him stands Olivares as equerry-in-chief. Behind follows Mateos, the royal huntsman. If this work really represents the hunt held in 1638, the mounted figure behind the minister cannot be Cardinal Ferdinand, who was then in Flanders. But the bare-headed person on the quiet horse in the second group on the left of the king may be Don Luis de Haro, who was present with his father, the Marquis del Carpio. At the other end five riders are grouped round a boar that two mastiffs have seized by the ear. Their horses are inferior to the splendid animals of the equestrian portraits, which were too valuable to be sacrificed at this sport. Besides the hunters we also notice in the arena a few large dark blue coaches with wide low glass windows in front and doors at the sides ; between the red curtains we recognize ladies, and in the second carriage The Boar-hunt, 215 Queen Isabella. The mules have of course been unharnessed and removed, for the ladies would doubtless have been deeply offended, had they been assigned a safe place outside the ring. Occasionally the boars made tremendous leaps; hence these dames are also provided with pitchforks to turn them aside. Moreover, two huntsmen with spears keep watch by the queen’s coach. In the museum of the Instituto Asturiano at Gijon there is a drawing of such a coach by Velazquez, which has also been published. Although no mention has yet been discovered of this hunting-piece in GROUP FROM THE BOAR-HUNT. contemporary records, it can safely be referred to the present period, and with probability to the close of the fourth decade. The statement of the Madrid Catalogue (p. 642), assigning it to the time posterior to the second Italian journey, is at once refuted by the presence of Olivares. Works commemorating such festive scenes are required immediately after the event, and hunts with figures of persons long and gladly forgotten, are not painted ten years after they have taken place. In these pieces the audience is, from the pictorial standpoint, strictly speaking of more importance than the players. Their respective parts are in V ELAZOUEZ. 2l6 a way exchanged. Royalty and grandees are hard at work in the dust, while their subjects with the rangers enjoy the spectacle, at times scarcely even thinking it worth while to turn round and see what is going on. They make themselves comfortable on the grass, or else turn their backs on the noble gladiators to indulge in a little quiet Court gossip. From such materials a fine scrap-book might be made of "Court Types,” or "Castilian Types of the Seventeenth Century.” Under yonder tree on the right you notice a peasant resting with elbows and chest on the patient back of his beloved ass — verily another Sancho Panza ! And those two rogues on the grass, one holding the water-jug to his mouth, look like a sketch by Murillo. The mendicant again in the brown cloak, both hands resting on his stick, is surely a privileged speculator, who solemnly invites the rich folk to increase their stock in the next world by entrusting their investments to him. Elsewhere a rider slashing at the hard flanks of his obstinate mule, while his escitdero shoves from behind ; or two cavaliers paying each other formal compliments ; or a group of experts in “ dog-flesh ” near the master of the hounds, thronging round the fine boar hound, who has been ripped up by the quarry. They don’t seem very numerous altogether, as they are scattered about, without a trace of conventional grouping or of “ padding ” to fill up the space. Yet, even deducting the heads that are merely suggested, there are over a hundred figures, some sixty outside and fifty within the central enclosure. By the play of light, colouring, and isolated position special prominence is given to the group of two or three cavaliers in grey and scarlet cloaks with the clergyman, perhaps the “ chaplain to the hunt.” They stand apart from the scene, they have some more weighty matters on hand, they are miles away from the people within their very hearing. Altogether the contrast could scarcely be greater between these rational and dignified groups from all social classes and the scenes nowadays witnessed on the turf with its betting and welching and hysterical excitement. Sir Edwin Landseer declared that he had never seen “ so much large Art on so small a scale.” 1 In these few touches we have more studies of costume and character, more types of rank and profession, more motives for pictorial disposition, than in whole series by popular genre painters, who, knowing their public well, are always setting the same marionettes dancing. After Goya had taken a copy (Prado, ill 6) Ferdinand VII. presented the original to the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley (1810-13), later Lord Cowley, who sold it in 1846 to the National Gallery for ^2,200. It had suffered much probably in the fire at the palace, and had to be 1 Stirling-Maxwell : Annals , 1873. The Boar-hunt. 217 thoroughly restored, that is, repainted in damaged parts, relined and pressed. The conflicting opinions regarding the value of the work gave rise to a parliamentary enquiry, when the artist, Mr. George Lance, gave the com- mittee a fantastic and exaggerated account of the state of the picture when placed in his hands to repair, and of the extent of the restoration effected by him during the six weeks he was occupied with it. But when confronted with the work, he was obliged to acknowledge that most of the restorations which he claimed to have made had disappeared. Soon after a tracing of Goya's copy, procured by Mr. William Stirling from Madrid, showed in fact that the restored work differed but slightly from that copy ; consequently Mr. Lance’s work of reparation could not have been so important or so extensive as he had asserted before the committee and afterwards reiterated in the public Press. 1 The present appearance of the canvas will satisfy anyone that there can be no question of such a repainting as was described by Lance ; the paint however is much cracked, many figures have been cleaned away to mere shadows, and the foliage darkened. An idea of its original condition may be had from a reduced replica, or possibly a first sketch, about twenty-four by forty-two inches, which was purchased for T325 10s. at Lord Northwick’s sale by the Marquis of Hert- ford, who bequeathed it to Sir Richard Wallace. Here the ladies’ coaches are wanting, as well as the less important section of groups of onlookers ; the other section agrees in all details, and the whole is fresher, more coloured and decided. The chief group must have represented well-known and distinguished persons ; it was made the subject of a separate picture, which was brought to England by Lord Grantham, ambassador in Madrid from I 77 1 to 1783- Ei this work, which was copied by Gainsborough and is now owned by Lord Cowper, the figures are one-third larger and stand quite apart, like con- spirators, under an arched space opening towards a hilly landscape. The trees show the school, but the colours are heavy and dull. Amongst the studies connected with large hunting-pieces were also probably two little works of the same school, broadly and sketchily painted, which passed from Lord Cowley’s collection to that of Herr Wesendonk in Berlin. One represents a hunting breakfast in the woods ; some gentlemen on the grass with a cloth, knives and forks, and some grey-haired mendicants attracted with the unerring instinct of the vulture, made happy with the spare scraps and even the generous wine from the goblets of the company^. 1 Athenanim, April 7, 1855. It may be added that according to Mr. Lance the damage was due to a Mr. Thane, who had been engaged by Lord Cowley about 1833 to clean the work, but who had blistered it with hot irons and then asked Lance to repair the mischief. Velazquez. 218 Others are seated peering into the distant space. The second piece depicts an old huntsman seated on the ground holding back a couple of impatient hounds, whom a dwarf in black Court dress is trying to quiet. The spot where the boar-hunt takes place is usually indicated as the so-called hoyo, or pit, in the Pardo. In the inventories for this place for 1772 and 1789 mention is made of two hunting-pieces by Velazquez, the Caza llamada del hoyo, and the Torre de la Parada contained the same subject painted by Cornelius van Vos on a canvas seven ells long. But these were much larger than our works, while their descriptive titles denote a very different kind of chase from the above-described royal hunts in canvas en- closures. According to Martinez the Monterici or Caza del hoyo involved the wholesale slaughtei of game, in which the poor inhabitants of the districts bordering on the large preserves sometimes took part. They were not so much pleasure parties as regular battues, organized for the practical purpose of saving themselves and their crops from the superabundant large game and rapacious animals. On these occasions a pit or ditch was dug eighteen feet deep and wide and approached by a track three hundred paces long enclosed between walls of closely woven branches. This track broadened out towards the heart of the hunting-ground, and at last terminated in living walls of •peasants. The quarry was then gradually allured within the enclosure, and driven forward until at last it rushed headlong into the pit. Although not a very noble sport, it was still entertaining enough to watch the behaviour of the different animals — wolves, deer, boars and foxes — when they found themselves entrapped within the ever narrowing space without any prospect of escape. The Court sometimes assisted at the spectacle in Aranjuez, Valvelada and Real de Manzanares, the king and queen seated on chairs, the ladies on carpets spread on the ground. The Stag-hunt. This work has more the character of a spectacle, even of a combat, than the Boar-hunt ; as a picture it is altogether more animated, richer in figures and colours. The landscape also is more inviting than that deep and gloomy arena. The scene is the verge of a park commanding an extensive prospect across the open plain, the magnificent timber suggesting Aranjuez, where the grand deer-hunts were held in the month of May. On the left dense clumps of trees project forwards, the afternoon sun shining through their dark foliage ; farther on cypresses rise above the thicket, cutting off the nearly cloudless sky, while a chapel, pond and pavilion occupy the intervening space. Then on the right, the plain lit up in the centre by a ray of sunshine, low flat hills bounding the distant horizon. The Stag-hunt. 219 This scene also deviates considerably from the usual monterias de vencidos (“ deer-hunts ”) as described by Argote de Molina, The unsuspicious game had been cautiously beguiled within a circuit of about a mile, and the canvas wall then gradually narrowed until all were brought within a space about as large as a toril, or bull-enclosure. 1 This space opened into a carrera, or course, forty paces wide and four hundred long, which was also confined by canvas walls, and through which the animals were driven by the grey- hounds to an enramada, or embowered raised platform, where the spectators of rank were seated. At an early period the pack was here let loose upon the game. But in this picture is shown the innovation which had now been introduced, and which, as described by Martinez de Espinar (p. 133), consisted in the change of parts, the princes and nobles being no longer spectators but matadors , and leaving the enjoyment of the sight to the ladies. They have taken up their position immediately below the platform, and are engaged with hunters’ knives striking down the stags as they arrive. Thus the foreground is obliquely intersected lengthwise by the two white canvas strips of the enclosure into which mounted beaters have driven the deer. At its extremity stands the tabladillo, or platform, decked with red cloth, and occupied by twelve ladies, amongst them three in the convent habit ; the others wear low-cut gowns, each of a different colour. The central figure in front on a red cushion with averted face, in a yellow dress with a white bow on her head, is probably Isabella of Bourbon. Below the platform four cavaliers— the king, his two brothers and Olivares — have e ntered the lists, his Majesty in front followed by the inevitable Olivares. These two brandish their knives with a backward thrust, while the two behind stretch forward, as if taking aim. Here was needed the highest degree of agility and coolness ; they might try to kill the stag by a well-planted thrust as the animal rushed forward, but had often to think themselves lucky if they succeeded in hamstringing them ; frequently the deer cleared the cavaliers at a bound, and then it was seldom possible to bring them to bay. The course runs under the ladies’ platform; beneath and behind which any that happened to break through were arrested and despatched. Three dogs have seized a stag by the antlers, and others are prevented with sticks from falling on the dead quarry stretched on the ground. We see 1 The toril is the place where the bulls are confined until they are led into the arena. — T ranslator. 220 Velazquez. how the ladies enjoy the fresh fragrance of the warm reeking blood — as at Hurlingham. This kind of carrera de gamos (“deer-hunting”) was a very rare royal sport, hence all the more prized and attractive. The course is lined by a numerous and animated throng from every rank of life, nobles, sportsmen, serfs, worthy burgesses and peasants from round about, lackeys, retainers and “ costermongers.” In front are about eighty figures, besides the mounted beaters, who have pulled up outside along the track, looking on hat in hand ; one however has “ come to grief,” and his horse is running off. The most distinguished personage in the foreground is a young well-grown man with a red and white plume, in somewhat foreshortened profile, wide embroidered collar and yellow top-boots — perhaps some royal guest. Before him stands a black curly pate, bareheaded with strongly marked round features, close by a red carriage with black roof. A cavalier mounted on a light bay horse has been taken for our Martinez de Espinar. Here also, as in the Boar-hunt, the groups of “swells” have turned their backs upon the spectacle, leaving open-mouthed surprise, applause and loyal demonstrations to the common folk. Both outward and intrinsic reasons render a due estimate of this work somewhat difficult. It comes undoubtedly from Velazquez’ studio, although his hand is less evident than in the Boar-hunt. To me the figures seemed more thoroughly treated, the brown shadows rather more prevalent, though the general impression is fresher and brighter. Assuredly such a difficult and masterly composition could have been constructed only by Velazquez. But it occurs for the first time under his name in a very late inventory, that of the Palace for the year 1772. On the other hand a hunting-piece in the Torre de la Parada (1714), described in like terms, bears the name of Seniers [Snayers], and a third in the Old Palace (1686) that of his pupil Juan B. del Mazo. Joseph Bonaparte brought it with him from Madrid and sold it to Mr. Baring. It is still in the possession of Lord Ashburton in Bath House. In the inventory of the Alcazar for 1686, a large Wolf-hunt of like description is also ascribed to Velazquez, and valued at the same price (one hundred and fifty doubloons) as the Stag-hunt. The Three Royal Sportsmen. In the Torre dc la Parada and in the same apartment containing the series of large hunting-pieces there hung three figures, the king, his The Three Royal Sportsmen. 22 i brother Don Ferdinand (the cardinal) and his little son Balthasar, in hunting costume and with dogs. After the fire they passed to the Bourbon Palace, Madrid, and are now in the Prado (Nos. 1074, 1075, 1076). But the palace inventory itself for 1686 — that is, for the same period — men- tions two hunting portraits of the king in the apartment of the tower facing the park, which was also set apart for hunting-pieces. Replicas must consequently have existed of both, possibly of all three, and in fact, such replicas are still extant. Although the three portraits are exactly the same height ( 1 *9 1 metre), agree somewhat closely in arrangement, costume and scenery, and seem to supplement each other in various details, yet they cannot all have been produced simulta- neously. According to his stated age ( anno cetatis suce vi.) the young prince was taken in 1635, and his father about the same year, that is, long after Ferdinand had left Spain (1632). Judging from his very juvenile features Velazquez must have painted him even before the first Italian journey. This passionate lover of sport, archbishop and primate while yet in his teens, had probably been anxious for once to see himself in the garb of a hunter. Then during his long absence abroad, this portrait may the cardinal-prince Ferdinand. have suggested to the king to have himself painted in like costume, as a pendent piece, in memory of the happy days they had both spent together in the hunting grounds of El Pardo. This is the only known portrait of Prince Ferdinand by our master ; all others, and they are numerous enough, were executed during the last years that he spent in Flanders (1636-41) by such . famous Flemish artists as Rubens, Van Dyck, and Caspar van Crayer. Ferdinand, third son of Philip III., was born in 1609, and in his ninth year received the 222 Velazquez. archbishopric of Toledo, and two years later (1620) the red hat. He was thus one of the eight who were made cardinals before their fourteenth year, and who, all but one, flourished in the first half of the sixteenth century. On the death of Albert (1621) the intention was entertained of sending one of Philip IV.’s younger brothers, at first Carlos, to be brought up in Flanders, and in due course succeed the Infanta Isabella as Stadtholder of the Low Countries. In 1623 Ferdinand was designated, but owing to Olivares’ intrigues, the matter was postponed for years. At last Isabella, who felt her end approaching (she died in 1633), wrote that unless he be sent at once Flanders would be lost to Spain. He accord- ingly started for Barcelona in 1632, in order to prepare himself by a year’s administration of Catalonia, and then left Spain for ever. He was the handsomest and the most richly endowed of the three brothers, without a trace of that indolence which, since the death of Philip II., seemed to have clung to the family. His activity in business and in the field was amazing ; he shared with the king his passion for sport, and in 1639 slew a wild boar in the Brussels woods, which had killed eight dogs, wounded four, and ripped up two horses. Those in his immediate intimacy called him “ the kindliest and most courteous prince that Heaven has sent us for centuries.” In our portrait, however, not much more than the head belongs to the likeness taken in 1628. Here he appears as a slim, beardless youth, whose pale face is relieved by narrow shadows accentuated especially by the strongly curved nose, while the cap projects on the forehead a shadow which is lightened by reflected light. The hair, which later in life fell in light gold waves on the shoulders, is here cropped short, and a touch of languor, caused by fever, lies on the large bright eyes and on the features, which are more intellectual than those of his brother. Although he seems physically more delicate than the king, he still betrays more of the stuff of a ruler in his resolute intelligent expression. The rest of the figure bears the stamp of a later period. Thus, the golilla, or horizontal collar, has supplanted the wide pointed valona, which had been covered over. The landscape in a cool light blue-grey tone, is treated with great breadth and freedom, but the effect is such that we fancy we can breathe the very atmosphere of yonder hills. The thick application of colours with abundant mixture of white was probably employed in order judiciously to conceal older pigments. The question suggests itself whether the two other portraits may not also have assumed their present condition at some time posterior to 1635. The Three Royal Sportsmen. 223 In that of the king there are not lacking traces of repainting and revision. The left leg had originally been brought more forward ; the fowling-piece was longer ; the trunk-hose fuller. Under the left hand planted on the hip there peeps out what looks like a large hunting-bag. Lastly, the picture of the young prince, compared with the equestrian portrait of nearly the same age, is considerably more free and solid, like a rapid recast executed more from pure fancy than after Nature. Both figures and surroundings look as if they had been brought more in harmony with the repainted portrait of Ferdinand. All stand under an oak tree, the weather is fine, and the dogs are in attitudes of rest, awaiting the shot. Ferdinand's is a powerful cinnamon-coloured animal of that formidable breed which is the terror of tramps and loafers about the Andalusian farmsteads. The king has a magnificent mastiff, and the prince an Italian greyhound and a beautiful setter stretched out for a sleep. Judging from these specimens it would be difficult to name a painter with a more thorough knowledge and observation of sporting dogs. All the costumes are also the same, even to slight details — hunting-caps showing one ear pressed back or turned up ; vest of dark figured silk under a leather jerkin or short cloak with false sleeves, long leather gloves, white knee-breeches, military boots. The prince rests his little gun jauntily on the sward ; the king’s long heavy piece is held under the left arm hanging by his side ; Ferdinand holds his in both hands ready to take aim. The scene lies amid the hills, perhaps in the neighbourhood of the Escorial, the sierra showing in the distance. The view is most open in Don Balthasar’s picture, where we see in the middle distance a hill with a castle and thin undergrowth of oak, beyond it a stretch of level ground with a little tower close to the foot of the range. Everywhere harmony between figure and environment, in the distribution of forms and high lights. The glimpses of sunshine flashing in the clouds and piercing through the foliage stand in nicely calculated relation to the high lights on the faces, and the white spots and bright patches on the trusty companions at the feet of the sportsmen. The replica of the king’s portrait in the Louvre (No. 552) is interesting because in its almost monochrome character it illustrates the condition of the brown ground ; in the landscape we detect a slight tendency towards local tints. The king has removed his hat ■ and the face is completed, but in a soft, monotonous yellowish flesh-tint, quite different from the plastic, very fresh, healthy and florid head of the Prado work. 224 Velazquez. The shortcomings of this life-breathing high tone, even more than the touch, reveal the work of a pupil or copyist. The Master of the Hounds. Portraits are still extant of Mateos and Martinez, two masters of the hounds, who doubtless played the chief part in organizing the grand hunting parties, and whose works have been so valuable to us in our description of these royal pastimes. The older, which has been finely engraved by Pedro Perete, stands as a medallion an inch and a half in diameter on the title- page of the Origin and Dignity of the Chase, 1634. 1 The other is a full- length figure, facing the preface of the Arte de Ballestria, 1644, and has been engraved by Juan de Noort (cr 1 7 x o - 1 3 metre). The legend runs : Alonso Martinez de Espinar, que da el arcabuz a su Magestad, y Aiuda de Camera del Principe Nuestro Senor , de su edad de 50 Afios. Both are extremely earnest men, with a strong military look. Juan Mateos is an elderly gentleman, the thin hair brushed over the nearly bald forehead, wrinkled face, rather heavy eyelids imparting a somewhat deadened look, mustachios and pointed imperial, short neck and stout figure. Alonso Martinez is an angular, hard featured head (gens dura Ibera ), with short, narrow and strongly receding fore- head, flat crown, prominent cheek-bone, high arched eyebrows, sunken eyes with eager side-glance, broad hooked nose — a man inured to the hardships of Castilian hunting grounds. This head Carderera fancied he recognized in the portrait No. 1105 in the museum, in which however there is nothing beyond a certain general resemblance. And if the identity is doubtful, Velazquez’ authorship is highly improbable, for although this bust is painted with a firm hand it shows none of our master’s special characteristics. 1 In his 'notice of the engraver Cean Bermudez unaccountably calls it the head of Olivares. Juan Mateos. 225 On the other hand a painting in the Dresden Gallery is an undoubted Velazquez, although the likeness to our Juan Mateos may not be entirely convincing. I refer to the unknown man in black (No. 697), which of the three portraits from Modena bearing Velazquez’ name is alone unanimously accepted as genuine. This first-class portrait represents a man of stern aspect and rigid bearing, a figure one does not easily forget. The thin closely cut hair is slightly curled, the eyes are overshadowed by bushy almost scowling brows, the skin on the forehead is contracted so as to form a deep horizontal wrinkle separating frontal and nasal bones. These furrows look like the traces of authority habitually exercised for some thirty years, while the somewhat downcast side-glance of the dark lustreless eyes seems to be taking the measure of some one held rather in contempt. The moustache under the upturned nose is already gray ; a soured expression plays about the mouth, where the broad compressed underlip arrests attention. Lastly, the bilious hue (even the lips are pale) completes the impression of a man who was the scourge of the district, perhaps of himself, and who only with reluctance consented to give the painter a sitting. The head is painted with few colours and vigorous brush on a white ground, which shows through at the golilla, the imperial and the right sleeve. The warm deep brown of the eye is also utilized for the narrow shadows of the corners of the orbits, nose, wrinkled neck and foreshortened side-face indicated by a few broad firm touches ; lastly by its means depth is given to the left side of the background, where however the colour has cracked. With such simple means the yellow, wrinkled head standing out from the dark ground has been modelled in a way that Velazquez himself has never surpassed. No one who has seen this Dresden head will open the title-page of that work on the chase by Juan Mateos without remembering it. The figure, the features, the soured look, the costume all agree ; only in the medallion the face is older, more feeble, and the grim furrows between the eyes are missing. But this will scarcely tell against the theory of identity when we bear in mind the frequently arbitrary treatment by engravers. The painting must naturally be dated back several years before 1634. In parting with these hunting-pieces it may be mentioned that the glory of the Torre de la Parada, for which so many of them were executed, was even more transitory than that of Buen Retiro. During the war of succes- sion the place was wasted and plundered (1710), when some of the works perished, and most of the others were removed to Buen Retiro. At present it is occupied as a residence by the park rangers. Its very name would be 15 226 Velazquez. forgotten, were it not indelibly recorded in the biography of Rubens and in connection with the numerous paintings, which have helped to enrich the Prado collection. Alonso Cano in Madrid. (i637-5i)- The building and decoration of Buen Retiro gave a fresh stimulus to Art circles in Spain, and from time to time attracted to the Court many of our master’s old Sevillan friends. Amongst them were Herrera, Zurbaran and his schoolfellow Alonso Cano, the latter of whom had been obliged to quit the Andalusian capital in 1637 owing to a brawl, which had unfortunately ended fatally. In Madrid he was well received by Velazquez, who recom- mended him to Olivares, and procured him commissions for the palace and the Church of St. Isidro erected by Philip IV. In due course he became a Court painter and even drawing-master to the crown prince. At the Court his reputation stood high, and Madrid became the second, as Seville had been the first, and Granada was destined to become the third, scene of his activity. None of his contemporaries felt more thoroughly at home in the capital, where alone he found elbow-room for his wayward habits and for the c onstant excitement needed by his restless spirit. Alonso seemed the embodiment of one of those cloak and dagger pieces, the counterfeit presentments of those swashing cavaliers, who have to make their wills every time they venture abroad. At the same time he was very devout, and was soon found figuring as major-domo to the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Sorrows. When he came upon a penitenciado 1 of the Holy Inquisition he shrank from the contact, and threw his mantle away should it happen to be polluted by the touch of such impious heretics. His professional pride alone set limits to his devotion ; he was fined a hundred ducats, because he refused to join in the procession of Hol} r Week, at which the painters had to walk with the alguaziles de Corte ("Court bailiffs”). He was withal very gallant, and displayed boundless graciousness towards friends and pupils, to whom he occasionally handed over his rough draughts, and now and then completed their works. Nor did this mirror of chivalry lack a touch of the indolence charac- teristic of the Spanish aristocracy. Had he possessed a moderate 1 Failing to distinguish between passive and active , M. Charles Blanc in his Histoire des Peintres confuses the penitenciado , or victim, with the penitenciario, or minister of the Holy Office, and thus represents Cano as a violent opponent of the Inquisition, much to the edification of his readers. Alonso Cano. 227 independent income he would have become a mere dilettante. As it was, he painted, continued his old carvings, supplied fantastic designs for the monument of the Passion in St. Giles’ and for the triumphal arch at the Guadalajara gate for the entry of Queen Mariana in 1649. But he preferred sketching, his dainty little drawings of this class being outlined on white paper with the pen and shaded with sepia or Indian ink ; he thus drew several pen and ink designs of everything he painted, and of much that he never painted. Such trifles he would dash off for impor- tunate beggars, and send them to some acquaintances, who would buy the sketches. But his most favourite participation in Art-work was the inspection of copper-plates and other curios ; he was always ready to throw up his own pursuits whenever he heard anything of the kind was to be seen. Thep the sight of these things would stimulate him to imitate, for pure invention he found too laborious. Although the utilization of foreign copper-plates was at the time common enough, still it caused surprise in the case of a person of his reputation. He even turned to account the vignettes on the fly-sheets of the street ballads, remarking that he had no objection to others doing likewise w 7 ith him. Hence it is that Cano’s painting is as difficult to characterize as that of the eclectic Caraccis. His St. John in Patmos (Prado) is executed after Ribera’s St. Jerome ; his Soledad is a transcript of Becerra’s Estofado statue in Madrid, though otherwise remarkable for its expression of disconsolate grief ; the Noli me tangere in the Esterhazy Gallery is a free copy after the Correggio in Madrid, which is again recalled by Cano’s penitent Magdalen in St. Michael's Chapel, Granada, as well as by many gestures, foreshortenings, and gambols of his little cherubs. Our Lady of the Rosary in Malaga was apparently inspired by Titian’s famous St. Sebastian now in the Vatican ; the Angel with the Dead Christ in the Prado is a free imitation of Paolo Veronese’s masterpiece in the Hermitage; in his St. John the Baptist and St. Paul he assimilated the powerful forms and animated flaming contours of Rubens. No other painter has aimed more at simplifying and cutting short the details and accessories of painting ; hence it is impossible to imagine anything more simple than the composition of Cano’s works. Most of those at that time produced in Madrid are solitary figures, incidents, Christ at the Pillar, Christ bearing the Cross, Christ on the Cross, Mary reposing with her Child, Joseph with the Child and the like. Favourite subjects, such as the Immaculate Conception, he repeats like reprints in sculpture 228 V ELAZOUEZ. and painting ; he borrows not only from others, but from himself. In visions such as those of St. John the Evangelist, St. Benedict, or St. Bernard, the heavenly apparitions are like little porcelain figures hovering aloft in the clouds, or statuettes fastened to the wall. In those large figures of the Passion he simplifies the face by shadows and fore- shortenings, and in groups by the expedient of the vanishing profile, leaving the surroundings as empty as possible. As regards the technique, he uses a reddish ochre ground for the shadows, applying the lights with cold, chalky white. This style of technique he introduced into Granada. A result of this facile manner is that no other Spanish painter of celebrity has left behind him so much that is empty, lifeless, paltry, even tasteless and absolutely abortive. Some of his Madonnas are utterly deficient in beauty and expression, in life and grace, and this deficiency is not even made good by a realism of an inferior order. A wooden figure, the upper part stuck in a heavy blue mantle as in a cask ; a head with rounded parietal bones and high skull ; sleepy eyes with a vacant stare ; a flat nose ; cheeks puffed out below ; sour mouth. Remarkable with him, as with Moretto, is the frequent recurrence of eyes with a sideward leer. These are defects which are scarcely balanced by the fine, beautifully drawn hands. Nor will this judgment be easily regarded as too severe even in the case of his chief work of this class, the Conception in the Sacristy of St. Isidro, where, probably at Velazquez’ suggestion, he essays the effect of pure light but fails. Now, should anyone wish to convince himself with his own eyes of the greatness of “ this solitary ideal painter of the Spanish School,” to use an expression which has passed into an article of faith, he may find himself somewhat in the position of a suppliant at Court “ without pelf or patron.” He may wander in hope from Madrid to Seville, from Seville to Granada, and thence to Malaga, until losing all patience he may pronounce this Cano of Art histories to be a pure myth, pos- sibly even forgetting that he had at all events occasional flashes of inspiration. To these inspired moments we are indebted for some few more deeply attractive pieces. Amongst them are the Madonna in the Cathedral of Seville with downcast glance and shading eyelashes ; the Christ with the Angel of Death now in the Prado ; the Saviour on the Rock of Calvary glancing sadly over his shoulder, in St. Gine’s. The figures of the Redeemer at any rate betray the artist’s plastic studies of the nude and his knowledge of noble forms ; they are delicately and correctly Alonso Cano. 229 modelled without any anatomical display. Thus we see that draughtsman- ship, pathos, colour, and grace stood at his command when he chose ; only his rich faculties remained mostly dormant, thanks to that national trait — indolence. And here it should be remarked that many who have passed more favourable judgments on Cano, especially on his ideal tendency, had before their eyes works never painted by him. Such, for instance, are the Holy Family resting on the flight to Egypt, in the Carthusian Convent near Granada, and the enchanting Madonna in the lower chapel of the sacristy at Cordova. These lovely figures, in form and sentiment genuinely Andalusian, are by Fray Atanasio, called Bocanegra. In the year 1644 occurred an event which has not yet been quite cleared up, but which at the time cast a shadow on Cano’s life, and obliged him to leave Madrid. His wife was found one morning in bed done to death by numerous stabs of a knife. Suspicion fell at first on his model, an Italian, but afterwards on himself. He had been unfaithful to her, and wanted to marry the other, as was said. Warned in time he fled to Valencia, but returned and lived some time in concealment. At last, however, he fell into the hands of justice, and bravely stood the examination under torture without uttering a cry. His right hand was spared by order of Philip IV. The shock of this terrible experience, the yearning for rest and safety may have induced him to apply for a radon (prebend) from the cathedral of his native place. He represented to the chapter that amongst so many musicians a painter also might be of service to the Church. Henceforth he was known as the radonero (prebendary), but under the ecclesiastical habit the old leaven still persisted, and he was constantly involved in lawsuits with the chapter. Yet the works here produced were amongst his best. The paintings in the choir with their thin, reddish half-tones nearly equal the finest productions of the Bolognese school ; amongst others the Assumption has reminded partial admirers of Guido. Here he died in 1667. Murillo in Madrid. Amongst the new faces that at that time presented themselves to Velazquez was a poor youth who, trusting to his star, had probably made the journey from Seville to the capital in company with mule-drivers. He came, however, not like others to make his fortune at Court, but to learn, although in some respects, if not in years, already nearly too old for that. 230 Velazquez. He had been “painting for the million,” but in him the impulse towards higher things had become irresistible. In order to understand what Velazquez was to Bartolome Murillo, let us see how this rising genius had hitherto fared. Thanks to the indications of natural gifts, he had been early placed with Juan del Castillo (born 1584), a good painter, who had also been Alonso Cano’s master. Juan was one of the last surviving mannerists, an artist without virtues or vices, who turned out indifferent studio heads, and did not lack skill in composition and in light and aerial effects. Such he shows himself in the paintings now in the Seville Museum, and in his chief work, the altar-pieces in the Church of St. Juan de Alfarache, but which formerly belonged to that of St. Juan de la Palma. When Castillo removed in 1639 to Cadiz, Murillo, who would appear to have hitherto been employed by him, is said to have now found himself quite destitute. So in order to keep the wolf from the door he took to working for the booths and stalls at the local fairs. His biographers tell us nothing of his manner at that time. Works of this description vanish like drops in the sands of the unknown. On some rare occasions he may have been honoured with a commission for the corner of some cloister, which might be done cheaply. Three such works were shown to Ponz and to Cean Bermudez, and one of these, which stood in the Dominican College of Regina Ccelorum, was in the possession of Mr. Joseph Prior, Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1879. This production shows no resemblance to any of his authentic later works. It is painted in a clear faint tone, a thing done to order, with sentences transcribed in colours. To a certain Fray Lauterio troubled by a qualm of theological doubt the patroness of the convent appears between St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, and takes the opportunity to pay a special compliment to the Doctor Angelicus. “ Crede huic, quia ejus doctrina non deficiet in ceternum ,’ n says Francis to the friar, who thereupon opens the Summa Theologice, and finds his doubts solved. The blonde, mild Madonna with crown, blue mantle and rich clasp corresponds to the fancy picture of a devout friar, while the angels are pretty children after Nature- The hands also show that he had some taste. But the hour of awakening, as the “ revivalists ” say, came at last for Murillo. Pedro de Moya, a former schoolfellow, back from the wars in 1 “ Believe him, for his doctrine shall not fail for ever.” Here huic of course refers to St. Thomas, author of the Summa Theologice , the standard work on questions of dogma in mediaeval times, and still held in the highest esteem by Roman Catholic theologians. — Translator. Murillo. 231 Flanders, told him of the northern painters, whose works he had seen during the leisure of his winter-quarters. Amongst them a certain Van Dyck had made such an impression on him that he had resolved to follow him to England, but unfortunately arrived somewhat too late, the artist having died six months afterwards. With Andalusian figures of speech Pedro described to Murillo, who had hitherto trod such obscure paths, the honour he had received even in the eleventh hour from his association with the knighted artist, the intimate friend of the princes and lords of England. He also spoke of the splendour, the fire, the tumultuous life of Rubens’ canvases. But Pedro can scarcely have brought back any originals by Van Dyck, nor were his own essays calculated to convey any very clear conception of them to his inquisitive friend. But he may assuredly have shown him many beautiful prints by Paul Pontius or Schelte van Bolswert. Anyhow his visit set the stone rolling, and Murillo, after much inward struggling, at last made up his mind to break from his Sevillan associations and get somehow to Madrid. And now his facile brush stood him in good stead. Buying a large strip of canvas and stretching it on a frame, he filled it with numerous small devotional subjects, which he disposed of to the shippers for the Indies. He thus contributed to the edification of the faithful in Peru and Mexico, while procuring for himself the means of undertaking the journey. Thus Murillo, now in his twenty-fourth year, presented himself one day at the Alcazar, thoroughly sunburnt by his long ride, and looking like a gipsy with his thick unkempt black hair, mantle and hat somewhat the worse for wear. And now the situation took a certain dramatic interest. Had his Majesty’s Court painter been one of those great men, in whose presence young aspirants to fame are apt to receive a first rude shock of disappoint- ment, he would doubtless have looked the young traveller up and down, and and put him off with some frivolous excuse. Or if he did condescend to listen to the young man’s appeal, he might have wound up the interview by the encouraging remark: “Yes, my fine fellow; I plainly see that you lack all training, and what you have hitherto done is worse than nothing ; and considering your age and your circumstances, I should advise you seriously to think over the matter before committing yourself to this career.” But not so our Court painter, who had detected in the young man something exceptional, and feelings of jealousy were too alien from his nature not to be rejoiced at the discovery. He gave him the best he had to give, advice based on careful personal inquiry, hints that contained the secret of his own success as an artist. He moreover gave him free access to the palaces, where, thanks to the frequent and prolonged absence of the 232 Velazquez. king in Saragossa, opportunities for study were at that time much better than usual. Velazquez could easily understand the position of his fellow-country- man, whose teacher was a painter of about the same stamp as his own father-in-law. He himself had endeavoured to strike out a path for him- self independently of the school, and that was just about the time Murillo was born. And what was wanting here ? Of talent, facility, taste, devotion, will, opportunity, there was assuredly no lack. Consequently he needed not wings but lead, as Bacon says — that is, the subjection of the spirit to the realities. Velazquez accordingly explained to him his own earlier methods, showed him the Water-Carrier of Seville, preached to him the gospel of Nature, in whose book even the blessed in heaven and the miracles of the saints lay concealed ; only one must know how to interpret it. But the miracle of painting, thought the old masters, was relief, whereas his figures were only many-coloured shadows. He must therefore study relief at all cost, and at first with the simplest and most effective means — black and white. And if he also wished to understand how one may become a really Catholic painter in the Spanish sense, he should study Spagnoletto. That his advice ran somewhat in this direction was shown by the result. The first work undertaken by Murillo immediately after his return was the series from the lives of the Minorites in the small court of the cloisters in St. Francisco, including the miracles of St. Diego of Alcala, who had been canonized at the instance of Philip II. In these eleven pictures, now scattered to the four quarters of the globe, the mendicants and mendicant friars, the “ street arabs,” the dons and clerics of Seville were depicted direct from Nature without the intervention of any foreign spectacles. Here we have the ecstasy of a saint composed from the materials of a kitchen-piece ; a throng of beggars of the type of Ribera’s Icizzcironi serve as the models for the scene where St. Diego blesses the pot of soup before distributing it to the famished crowd ; the ragged urchin ridding himself of vermin (Louvre, No. 547) might be assigned to Velazquez had the figure been painted a little thinner; in the Adoration of the Shepherds Ribera’s influence is evident. And when the cycle was completed we read how “ his neighbours wondered where he had acquired this new, masterty and unknown manner.” For Murillo had kept his trip to Madrid a secret, so that they never suspected he had visited a northern academy. “ They fancied he had shut himself up for two long years studying from the life, and had thus acquired this skill.” Such was the opinion even of the older writers Murillo. who, like Palomino, had seen if not conversed with him. Palomino tells us that Murillo studied Nature in Madrid, and mentions him with Caravaggio as an instance of how one may become a great painter without distinguished teachers or exemplars, by the study of Nature, aided however by genius and natural taste. He adds that Murillo had to thank others only for a few slight elements and for what the eye can of itself extract from the works of the old masters. 1 Were we unaware of this visit to Madrid we should unhesitatingly conclude that Murillo’s prototype was Zurbaran, who was his senior by twenty years, and who in this very way had arrived at similar results. Certain now unknown circumstances must have prevented these two men from coming into contact. During the thirteen years from 1625 to 1638 Zurbaran had, especially considering his painfully laborious system, displayed amazing productive power, filling the convents and churches of Andalusia and Estremadura with whole cycles of great paintings. But after that period there is a gap in his chronology. We read how he returned to his native town, Fuente de Cantos, and we know that in 1644 he executed a retablo for the church of Zafra a few miles from that place. If one might hazard a suggestion, we should say that nothing short of Velazquez’ great reputation at that time would have sufficed to break down Murillo’s prejudices against naturalism. The Court painter’s works produced the impression that he was here in the presence of the foremost national painter, and this enabled him to get rid of that vapid devotional manner, to which he had hitherto been thoroughly enslaved. In Carducho’s and Pacheco’s books we read of the offence given by the new method.. But once convinced by facts and reasons he gave himself up heart and soul to this new manner. He now comes forward as a tenebroso, with darkened shadow's, dull yellow lights, tints from the cold section of the spectrum, with types of a home-bred character and sobriety of expression, compared with which Spagnoletto appears noble and elevated. Now it became evident that after all he possessed a good stock of Spanish phlegm and of Spanish positivism. His street urchins, with their unconstrained naturalness, laugh to scorn everything of the kind ever before or since produced, although fashioned and coloured in the atmosphere and sunshine of Andalusia, and unapproached in their natural, one might say their animal, charm. From these melons, grapes, pots and cans, every painter of still life may learn something ; for here 1 Museo ftictorico , ii. , 62. 234 Velazquez. Murillo’s brush seems plunged in the same dough, from which Nature has kneaded these things. Doubtless the wiseacres of the last century sing quite a different song. According to them Murillo is an instance of how one may become a great painter in picture galleries. He “read up” his style in the apartments of the Alcazar and Escorial and in the halls of the great, where, as Palomino tells us, he copied many of Titian’s, Van Dyck’s and Rubens’ works, without neglecting to draw after the stucco casts from the antique, and the example of the grand manner and accuracy of Velazquez ( Museo , iii., 420). Thus from these six elements (Spagnoletto being thrown in with the rest) we should have a mixture which is called the Murillo style. No- body will doubt that he made a thorough examination of these masters, that he grovelled in the dust before them, that he studied them brush and palette in hand. But had he aimed at building up his style on them, as Mengs did a hundred years later, he would merely have added to the number of the Carduchos, Carrenos or Cerezos, who really became what they are in the royal galleries, and who in colour and touch often tread closely on the heels of their prototypes. Those critics fancied they had solved the “unknown quantity” of a truly artistic character by formulating an equation, whose value was made up of at least some half-dozen names of the past. At present this eclecticism is discredited to the utmost ; but the theory of influences is held in all the greater favour that your mechanical minds are unable to conceive the growth of genius, except as a process analogous to the functional system of their own brain. In point of fact, if the works be placed side by side, it would be an endless task to show the various features in which they do not resemble each other. How widely Murillo’s glow of light and colour from above differs from the cool silver tone of his adviser and guide ! How little akin are his hazy chiaroscuro, his clear open animation to the grim, subdued impulsiveness of the Valencian with his formal contrasts, or to the dejected wobegone sentiment of a Van Dyck ! How different his line southern sense of form and mass from Rubens’ extravagances in form, gesture, and colour! Thus we see that from these two supplementary years of study in the capital, Murillo brought away precisely the very opposite of what was otherwise usual — the rejection of all conventionalism. The visit acted on him as a purgative of bad habits. Hence the success of those scenes in the Franciscan Convent, which even now might claim Murillo. 2 35 to be thoroughly indigenous to the soil. What struck the Sevillans as remarkable in them was the absolutely novel unreserve with which figures and features familiar to all were introduced into the legends, the freedom of hand with which these monkish chronicles were tran- scribed, and which made the impossible, or what no one had ever seen, look as probable as everyday occurrences. They frankly admitted that no one in Seville knew till then what painting was. Later Murillo certainly tuned his instrument to somewhat higher melodies. Then the spirit of light fell upon him, dissipating the vapours of his gloomy manner. Still for his special charm, for the triumph of his most renowned creations in after years he remained indebted to that critical turning-point in Madrid, when Velazquez’s guiding spirit introduced him to naturalism. Let us consider further that, although written in Greek, there was a time when the Gospel did not sound as Greek to its readers. So Murillo, like Rembrandt, mingling with the populace, amongst whom these miraculous events had also taken place, translated the Bible and the Acts of the Saints into the popular dialect. The leading characters in the New Testament were no gods or heroes ; and Murillo discovered that the daughters of the Spanish peasantry could personate the Queen of Heaven in the Mystery of the Conception, or in the Auto better than famed Italian actresses. We read, though not in the old biographies, that he also desired to visit Italy, and that Velazquez had offered to assist him in the project. Nor would it apparently have been anything so very extraordinary for Murillo to venture on such a journey. What were Civita Vecchia and Naples compared to the remote regions between which and Seville the “Indiamen” were constantly plying? But having been compelled early in life to work for his bread he was unable to lay aside his brush except for short intervals of relaxation or studies. For two years he had suspended work in the capital, but after that first and last journey he had immediately returned to his native place for good. Critics holding Mengs’ views used to say that he only lacked this visit to Italy to become the Spanish Raphael. But history suggests another story. Those Vargas and Cespedes, wdio had brought from Italy their cosmopolitan style, never succeeded in obtaining cosmopolitan recognition. But Murillo, who was at home only in his native land, who worked only for his neighbours, who took his ideals from them, who assimilated least of foreign elements, Murillo has become the most international of all Spanish painters. 236 Velazquez. This is the painter who, well nigh two hundred years ago, burst through the gloomy enclosures and dim-lit colonnades of church and convent, on his triumphal procession round the globe. For he at least possessed the art of winning the favour of all, the gift of a language intelligible to all times and peoples, to all classes and even to aliens to his faith. He first discovered in the forms of his fellow-countrymen that “ touch of Nature ” which “ makes the whole world kin.” He relieved miracles of the unnatural and ecstasy of all morbid sentiment ; under his charming touch visions, mysticism and monkish tales assumed a genially human complexion. In an epoch of shams and falsehood he still was true ; in an age of depraved taste he created pure forms of undistorted Nature, dwellers in happy Arcadian fields, who give us a picture of his native land very different from that of the sad records of its later history. The Crucifixion in San Placido. Since his removal to the capital Velazquez had given up religious painting, probably through lack of time and commissions as well as of inclination. Some special circumstances may have induced him again to take up such subjects after an interval of some fifteen years. But whereas in the clerico-monastic surroundings of Seville, with great exemplars before him, he had produced nothing but indifferent works of this class, with little originality and even cold and repulsive, he now surprises us, in this mundane and spiritless Court atmosphere, with productions remarkable not only for novelty of conception, but also for their undoubtedly effective character. I'wo such paintings are extant, one long known, the other recently brought to light. The former, Christ on the Cross, was till lately regarded as exceptional, Count de Ris remarking that, “ had he not painted this Crucifixion, people would believe he did violence to his genius when he treated religious subjects." Thore found a Shakespearean element in it, and called it “ terrible.” Stirling-Maxwell also declared that “ this great Agony ” had never before been more powerfully represented, although it is no agony but death. Cumberland considered that this figure alone would have sufficed to render him immortal, while others, probably with- out wishing to be taken seriously, spoke of "elevation to the loftiest heights of idealism.” Velazquez adopted the representation of the Saviour in absolute isolation which was at that time in favour with the great Italians and Flemings. The Crucifixion. 2 37 Probably the first masterly example of this treatment, which was unknown to mediaeval Art, was Durer’s small Crucifixion in the Dresden Gallery. But between the lines of all this warm admiration one may still read that the writers were at the same time at least somewhat perplexed at Velazquez’ performance. A Crucifixion in the Shakespearean spirit would seem to suggest something different — a night-piece, for instance, the heavens overcast with heavy clouds, through which a gloomy ray struggles to reach the moribund features ; in the witching hour of night plains stretching away in the background as if under the curse of the wrong just consummated ; a thunderstorm in the middle distance; a picture such as hovered before the imagination of Van Dyck and of his lugubrious Spanish imitator, Mateo Cerezo ; a work such as Murillo’s St. Francis in the presence of his crucified Saviour. But here we have a work in which all this is swept aside. The figure on the cross is depicted in the emptiness of an almost black space, 'Mike an ivory carving on a black velvet shroud.” Nor in the symmetrical and still youthful body can one detect any attempt to express the effects either of the agonizing position or of the death-struggle — the suspension, the strain and wrench of limbs and muscles, the last convulsive vital movements, as is usual with other painters. The legs rest on the supporting block, the arms are merely attached, not weighted. Of death there is nothing but the marble rigidity, 1 and even this has to be, strictly speaking, supplied in thought, for the artist obviously painted with a living model before his eyes, a model to which he scrupulously adhered. The figure in fact is in the very position that would be taken by a model, or by the actor in the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play, except that in .the latter case the unendurable position would be betrayed by the symptoms of unrest. 1 C’est correct, serre, solidc, comme un marbre . — Thore. Serre dc dessin comme un Holbein — Imbert. 238 V ELAZQUEZ. Add to all this the most symmetrical proportions ; no oblique position of the Cross, as is usual in the Rubens school; scarcely an inclination of the head to the shoulder ; altogether a rigid equilibrium completed by the juxtaposition of the feet with the two nails. The figure is in fact conceived more in the plastic than the pictorial spirit ; more plastic even than similar paintings by the sculptor, Alonso Cano. Bearing in mind the just-mentioned works, with their undulating forms, the deep brown shadows varied by luminous beams and red reflected lights, we shall be still more struck by the quiet, soft, yellowish tone of this delicately and clearly modelled figure. Yet the composition shows in other respects no imitation of sculpture. Beule, outdoing Sdrling-Maxwell’s comparison, misses the mark when he calls it the copy of an ivory piece. Musso was precisely struck by the fact that the black ground produced no harsh effect. Still less can I detect any reminiscence of Cellini’s Crucifix. The side-light, so advantageous for plastic effect, has not been employed, and Velazquez has attached more importance to the truth of a soft youthful surface, to imperceptible transitions, than to prominence of bone and muscular structure. On the other hand the inanimate outward details are very carefully treated, though without triviality. The grain of the well-planed shaft, the knots and the very resin that has oozed out of the pinewood, the few drops of blood that have trickled down, the crown of thorns, the tablet with the trilingual inscription, all are reproduced with the fidelity of a pre-Raphaelite. Are we then to conclude that the work is merely a study? Did the subject interest our artist, like so many before him, only so far as it gave him an opportunity of studying the nude ? But if so, whence the deep impression produced on so many observers? This impression is said to be caused hy a single trait, the only touch by which the severe symmetry of the composition is broken. The only dark part is the face, which, in the sudden relaxation of death, has sunk on the breast ; but here the artist was not satisfied with shade alone. When the head sank the long brown locks on the right side were thrown forward, and falling over the brow half-way down the breast, covered as with a heavy black veil the eye and right side of the face. The effect of this half veiling, although rather unconsciously felt than understood, is irresistible. This is the one weird-like trait which has fallen, as by accident, from the artist’s brush, conjured up from the unknown, the unconscious dimness of his creative fancy. The Crucifixion. 239 We are told that this touch is not the artist’s property, but borrowed from a small picture by Luis Tristan, which was formerly to be seen in the Vista Alegre Gallery, Salamanca, and the drawing for which is still said to be in the hands of a Parisian collector. If this Crucifixion is ascribed to Tristan on no better ground than the painting in the Madrid Museum, one need scarcely regret not having seen it. As in a hundred similar cases, it is probably a small copy after Velazquez, such as are so often imposed upon the public as original sketches. In order to make it something better than a copy, somebody assigned it to the Toledan artist who had been so praised by Velazquez. In this connection Thore remarks : “ In order to recognize Velazquez in this exceptional and sublime work, one must be thoroughly at home in the chronology of his talent ; we shall then know that his Christ is derived from Tristan.” The Parisian critic was unaware that Velazquez never diverged more from this chiaroscurist than in the Crucifixion. It is very solidly painted, in a clear, unsurpassingly true flesh tone, which in the lower half is softened by a delicate shading of gray. Velazquez, than whom no one understood better what was needed even to paint the simplest object well, that is, to come near to Nature, could scarcely have seriously undertaken to represent a Christ crucified true to Nature, or with verisimilitude. Still less did he trust himself to seize with the brush the expression of the dying God. He trusted that aid would here be found in the artistic feeling, which often discovers more in suggestion than in actual expression. Hence the shadow, the foreshortening of the face, the veil. He had recourse to the same expedient as the Greek artist, who had to depict the grief of Agamemnon at the sacrifice of Iphigenia. For the rest he was contented to place in the traditional position a well-shaped male model, without those haggard, slender, noble forms usually selected even by Montanes, Cano and Murillo. If I mistake not, the effect of the picture depends partly on this reserve of the artist, who in treating such a subject felt that he was not merely an artist. Devotion is little concerned with an artistically successful interpretation, but it values literal accuracy, authentic adjuncts; hence the veneration entertained for relics, memorials, and the like. He possibly felt that such a subject is most effective when treated in the simplest outward, but authentic, way ; that all accessories of the sentimental artist, the accompaniment of unconscious Nature herself, tend but to impair this effect. In a somewhat similar spirit a preacher of the Passion Sermon on Good Friday began by remarking that he would have preferred on such an 240 Velazquez. occasion setting up the crucified Redeemer in the chancel, and retiring from the pulpit. A sculptor at first sight of this work took it for a devotional piece suited for some pilgrims’ shrine. And this brings us to an archaeological point. Velazquez’ erudite father-in-law had considered that one of his missions in life was to revive the belief regarding the four nails, and to establish this doctrine against the tradition of the three nails, which had prevailed since the beginning of the thirteenth century. Apart from the works of St. Luke and Nicodemus, he appealed to a bronze by Franconi after a model by Buonarroti, which the painter Cespedes wore on his neck; and also to a drawing by Durer in a book belonging to Philip II., probably Granvella’s breviary. How rejoiced the old man must now have been when his son-in-law, perhaps in fulfilment of a long cherished wish, again introduced this “venerable and ancient” representation, consecrating it in a masterpiece ! Velazquez was followed by Alonso Cano in a work now in the Academy, and by Ribera in the Crucifixion at Vitoria (1643), in which however the feet are crossed. 1 In this fourth decade of the century the “Devotion of the Cross” had been specially stimulated in Madrid through the report (1633) that the Jews had scourged a Crucifixion, and that the figure had loudly and distinctly complained. The house of the sacrilegious criminals was levelled to the ground ; a congregation del bendito Cristo de la Fe was instituted, and of nocturnal torchlight processions and other expiatory devotions there was no end. The Spanish and Latin poetic effusions posted on the church doors alone involved an outlay of several hundred ducats. Till the year 1808 Velazquez’ painting was preserved in the sacristy of the Benedictine Convent of San Placido, a wretched little place lit only by a small grated window, and here it was seen by Ponz and Cumberland. Doha Teresa de Silva, foundress of this convent, had been betrothed to her cousin, son of Don Geronimo de Villanueva, Marquis of Villalba, Protonotary of Aragon, and one of the wealthiest of the Spanish grandees. But shortly before the marriage the engagement was suddenly broken off, the young lady took the veil and built this convent with the ex-bridegroom’s money. The new foundation was much in favour with the Court, and the gracious Sister Teresa received frequent visits from Olivares and the 1 Pacheco had also discovered that the Cross was fifteen feet high and eight broad, that it consisted of planed timber, the shaft cypress, the arms pine and olive, the supporting block cedar, the tablet boxwood ! Christ at the Pillar. 241 royal couple. Under the guidance of her father-confessor, the Benedic- tine friar, Francisco Garcia Calderon, the pious institution even seemed to be favoured with manifestations of extraordinary spiritual effi- cacy, which however soon inspired the Holy Office with serious alarm. The friar was condemned to perpetual seclusion, the prioress was banished for four years, and the sisters were dispersed amongst other communities (1633). But it was felt to be intolerable that the royal family and the Court should have frequented a religious house that lay under the ban of such a sentence. After five years the influence of Olivares and of the protonotary succeeded in obtaining a revision of the process by the Supreme Council, which resulted in the quashing of the previous judgment, and the reinstatement of the accused (1638). It would seem probable that the Crucifixion was painted by Velazquez in connection with this event. 1 Lately it has received a companion piece by the discovery of another scene from the Passion, the Christ at the Pillar. This painting, which has been only five ) f ears accessible to the public, may confidently be described as the most important addition made to the hitherto known treasures bequeathed by our master to posterity. Obtained over five-and-twenty years ago in Madrid, it had already produced a profound impression 2 at its first exhibition in Manchester (1857), and again at the British Institution in i860. Still the feeling was not free from those doubts as to its authenticity which so often attach to newly discovered originals. 1 Quilliet mentions ( Dictionnaire , 374) that Le Brun authorized him to offer the convent twenty thousand francs for the work, which afterwards came into tire hands of the Countess of Chinchon, wife of the Prince of Peace ; she offered it for sale in Paris (1826) where it was valued at twenty thousand francs. At her death it passed to her brother-in-law the Duke of San Fernando, who presented it to Ferdinand VII- The serpent and death's head wrongly said to have been added by the countess were already there when Carmona’s engraving was made. It is now in the Prado, No. 1055 ; size 2-48 x i'6g metres. 2 “ There is an originality and solemnity about this picture, not only in the general tone, but in the simplicity of the composition. The resignation of the Saviour and the silent awe of the child — for his heart only speaks — cannot fail to leave a deep and yet painful impression on all who have beheld it.” — Atheneeum , i860, i., 859. (National Gallery No. 1148; 76 x 68 inches.) 16 242 Velazquez. The obscurity from which it suddenly emerged, after an oblivion of over two hundred years, is puzzling. Perhaps as a devotional piece it may have been handed down as an heirloom in a private family unaware of its artistic worth. Afterwards it again remained over twenty years concealed in a private house, so that no greater surprise could have been offered to Velazquez’ numerous admirers than its appearance in the London National Gallery, to which it had been presented by Sir John Savile Lumley. Here is a religious work completely deviating from those otherwise known to be by Velazquez’ hand ; a work which in its blending of actual life with the supernatural and with Bible history is more mediaeval than modern ; a Passion scene, which, so far as was known, had never before been so represented ; lastly, a work which for once gives full expres- sion to the master's religious sentiment. Yet of this work not a trace can be found in old records and inventories. It has in truth so many unwonted elements that, as happened to myself, one might well doubt, judging from photographs. But all hesitation is removed by a view of the work itself, its colouring and method of execution. In any case since writing this notice I have myself discovered a preparatory study for this painting. All the master’s religious pieces, the earlier as well as the later, con- form in materials, conception and composition to tradition, and partly to definite prototypes. They make no claim to invention, the models and the process of painting being alone the artist’s property. But not so here. The picture gives an episode from the Passion between the scourging and the crowning with thorns, the Ecce Homo ! After executing their cruel work the scourgers have withdrawn, leaving their Victim to Himself, but forgetting to release the wrists from the shaft. The ground is strewn with the instruments — rods, blood-stained leathern thongs, small twigs— that have been used up by the executioners. Now the Saviour has sunk to the ground, but the fastened arms remain nearly horizontally out- stretched. He is seated on the floor, the figure turned to the left, but the face presenting a full front view, and expressing with intense vividness both the effects of the flagellation and the painful nature of this position of the exhausted frame. Similar agonizing attitudes Ribera has introduced in several variations of the theme of St. Sebastian’s martyrdom. Such episodes of the Passion, not mentioned in the Gospels, were inferred and devised in order, by their novelty and treatment of minute details, to Christ at the Pillar. 243 produce a more vivid effect than could be expected from constant repetitions of the same presentment. Thus, in a lifesize figure now in the San Fernando Academy Alonso represents Christ after the scourging ashamed of His nakedness and groping for the clothes that have been scattered round about ; He makes a step towards the mantle, which He draws to Him with both outstretched arms. According to Alonzo de Villegas , 1 it was the intention of His enemies that He should perish under the flagellation that the Roman governor had ordered in good part. They had in fact left CHRIST AT THE PILLAR. Him for dead when He had swooned away after the infliction of five thousand strokes. Then this view was further enlarged upon by contemplative minds They represented Him as falling to the ground on being released from the cords, but recovering through the shock, rising and casting about for His clothes. This scene is not even once mentioned by Ayala in his Pictor Christianus eruditus } Even more heart-rending pictures were invented 1 Flos Sanctorum (Barcelona: 1760), p. 57. 2 (Madrid: 1731.) P. 153. 244 Velazquez. by popular devotion or pious zeal ; but such treatment of the subject is slowly, if at all, adopted by true artists. Occasionally the penitent Peter is introduced kneeling by the side of the forsaken Redeemer, as in a painting of the old Cordovan school jointly with the two pious founders kneeling on either side of the pillar. Elsewhere angels make their appearance, as if the Saviour had been abandoned by all except these beings of the invisible world, spirits, as it were, of sympathy- -the grief of Christendom itself interpreted in the language of Art. Two such angels stand by the figure of Christ in the picture attributed to Murillo now in Sir Francis Cook’s collection, Richmond. One lays his hand on the arm of the other, who stands with clasped hands and eyes red with weeping, as if lost at the incredible spectacle, while the Saviour continues with His last remaining strength to struggle on the ground. In its simplicity and truth this angelic group were at all events not unworthy of Murillo. Pacheco also occupied himself with the same subject of the Man of Sorrows gathering up His clothes. In a paper addressed to Fernando of Cordova in 1609 he gives a detailed statement of his views and of the fundamental principles on which they are based. 1 To produce the deeper impression the face of the Redeemer should be turned towards the spectator ; a feeling of shame and the effects of the ill-treatment should be expressed in a delicately constituted, dignified figure ; the stripes on the shaded side should be restricted to the back ; the pillar lofty, the instruments of torture strewn on the ground of four kinds, and so on. By the mere perusal of this description Luis del Alcazar was inspired to the composition of a Latin poem. Two painters, one of Spanish, the other of Italian, origin come nearest to Velazquez’ idea. On the right of the entrance to the Church of the Merced Descalza at Sanlucar de Barrameda is a dark chapel with a large altar-piece, which is moreover so blackened that it is impossible to recognize the master, possibly Roelas. Here also an angel is introduced, but holding a child and pointing to the prostrate Saviour, who is trying to reach the mantle. The child clasps his hands to his breast. The other, by Bernardino Luini, is in St. Maurizio ( Monasterio Maggiore), at Milan, and here the Saviour is giving way or is sinking, but still sustained by the cords. Two attendants are unbinding him, and the right arm alone is still attached by the elbow. Here, how'ever, Christ has fainted, the legs are bent across, the head sinks on the shoulder, the left arm hangs down quite 1 Arte de la Pintura , i. 248-55. Christ at the Pillar. 245 helpless. Thus while the Spanish artist leaves a last struggling effort of the will and muscular energy, the Lombard figures the much more delicate body at the moment when all control of limbs and consciousness has com- pletely given way. The motion is more transitory, and even pathological ; the parts give angular and rectangular lines to which no objection need necessarily be made, so far as it gives striking expression to the intended situation, for in the interest of truth Art should not always shirk unlovely forms. Living personalities are also to some extent represented ; thus St. Catharine standing on the left side introduces the founder, whose action, however, is purely conventional. On the opposite side St. Stephen turns towards the devout community. In Velazquez’ work, as in that of Sanlucar, the devout person is a fair-complexioned child in a long, whitfe, girdled shirt, who is introduced by an angel — his guardian angel — and shown the forsaken Redeemer. At a hint from the angel in the rear the child has knelt down and clasped his hands, just as in the side compartments of mediaeval triptychs the patron saints introduce the founders and recommend them to the Madonna. Or the situation might be thus explained. The Saviour lay exhausted on the ground, the cord being long enough for the purpose, and He has now risen with an effort, in order to behold the child and respond to his devotion in the most seemly attitude possible. He turns His head and eyes on the little worshipper, who is deeply affected by the look of anguish. The in- clination of the child’s head to the right shoulder is intended to gain a better view of the eyes and features of the suffering Redeemer. What he sees he is incapable of understanding, and still less can he express his feelings in words ; but the heart speaks. When we look carefully at the picture, we notice a thin white line, a ray, which reaches from the position of the heart to the Saviour’s ear. Thus, as the poet sings, To see sad sights moves more than hear them told, For then the heart interprets to the car The heavy motion that it doth behold. And all is told in such simple language that we seem to be contemplating a real occurrence. Were the child alone there with his companion (without the wings) one would say this is a child some member of the family has introduced to his father’s deathbed, in order to utter a prayer for his repose. 246 Velazquez. If the other known religious representations of the Master leave the spectator indifferent, the failure is explained by reference to the nature of his Art. Hand and imagination alike seemed to fail him wherever any- thing had to be depicted in which the model left him in the lurch. But in the present case it must be admitted that this inference was premature. The angel however is a portrait. The short, straight forehead, the narrow concave nose, even the thick curly hair brought forward over the ears in accordance with the fashion of the day, leave no doubt on that point. But the downcast eye, the slightly pouting lips, as if about to weep, betray the harrowing impression of the moment. This expression shows fine invention, for it might have been more natural for the eye to follow the hand directing the child’s attention to the figure. But the angel fears himself to look, lest he be overcome with grief. In the collection of drawings bequeathed by Cean Bermudez to the Instituto Asturiano of his birth-place, Gijon, there is a crayon hastily sketched with broad strokes, which is a preparatory study after a model for this angel (No. 410 ; size 872 x 4 - 6 inches). Pose, action, dress agree exactly, only the hand raises the robe up to the knee, and the head is different. The model has short-cut hair, the occiput is high and angular, the nose straight, the face without expression, the hands mere outlines. As the painting was unknown in Spain, the drawing itself afforded little clue to its attribution, and consequently the title must rest on a long-standing tradition. The costume is perhaps borrowed from a figure in some Passion Play. Can the band crossing the chest have served to fasten the wings ? The painting may possibly be a votive picture, offered by a couple who had made a vow to have their little boy painted in the act of worshipping the suffering Redeemer. The figure of the Redeemer Himself is quite out of the common. Even in the schools given up to the imitation of the antique, such a physically powerful Christ has rarely been produced. That of the Minerva in Rome may perhaps suggest itself ; but here the impression of athletic strength is enhanced by the head, which is broad and flat, deviating altogether from the usual type. The short retreating forehead, with high bosses on the superciliary arches (it appears all the narrower from the dark locks matted over the forehead), recalls the Greek Hercules ; the effect is heightened by the powerful cheekbones and waving lines of nose and mouth. He is like a mighty champion, a Christ at the Pillar. 24 7 Samson, overcome by superior power, One alone capable of enduring such unheard-of tortures. When in Rome the artist may perhaps have studied one of the statues from the second school of Athens, such as the so-called Antinous (Hermes) of the Belvedere. Perhaps he may have chosen such forms, because an intolerable situation, in which the power of endurance is strained to the utmost, produces a less painful effect where apparently exceptional strength of resistance has been put forth. The work must have been executed in Velazquez’ middle period, for many traits point to the beginning, and others again to the end, of these two decades. The modelling of the nude is not far removed from that of the Vulcan ; the hands are already treated in his later sketchy manner, and the right foot in the shade is merely suggested. Note- worthy is the careful study of the three heads of hair, all alike abundant but differing in style. If the subject is somewhat unexpected, on the other hand the artist’s special quality seldom appears so characteristic, especially as displayed in his sense of colour and treatment of form. To those acquainted with the old masters only from the specimens in the National Gallery, this work would give the impression of a great school, entirely distinct from all others and represented by a solitary example. There probably exists no other painting executed in such a decidedly grey, blackish-grey tone, although it is by no means colourless, as seen in the orange-brown and dull crimson of the angel’s costume, which are peculiar to our Master. It is as if, after the terrible event that has here taken place, mourning Nature had strewn the scene with a fine shower of ashes, as after some tremendous volcanic outburst. Compared with this, how warm and golden, how Titian-like, appears the nude in Ribera’s Pieta ! — how glowing Murillo ! Yet both in such proximity are almost conventional. We look round in vain for such another arm painted as are these of the angel with upturned sleeves. Possibly the Entombment attributed to Michael Angelo might be mentioned ; but in our picture, with equal truth to form, more atten- tion is paid to softness, pliancy, and the clear shimmering tone of the nude in a youthful figure. Nor does this grey ever lack limpidity in shadows which for our artist are very deep. The colour of the Saviour’s face is bluish,, as with persons being choked, the white of the eye blue-grey. The nude forms are solidly modelled with full broad brush in large simple flowing traits on what appears to be a red brown ground, of 248 Velazquez. which not a trace penetrates to the surface, and the shadows are applied over the clear carnations. On a near view those forms seem to melt away before the eye ; but when we step back we are amazed at their accuracy and truth. One gets the impression that Velazquez not merely imitated, but actually understood the nature spread before his eyes — that he passed from the distinctness of the known to the vagueness of the seen, from the actual to the apparent. FIFTH BOOK. PORTRAITS OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD. 1631—1649. VELAZQUEZ AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER — FEMALE PORTRAITS — CELEBRITIES AND OBSCURI- TIES — PORTRAITS OF UNKNOWN PERSONS THE MARQUIS OF CASTEL RODRIGO — THE EQUESTRIAN PORTRAITS — LAST PORTRAITS OF OLIVARES JULIANILLO PRINCE BALTHASAR CARLOS — -TOWN VIEWS : SARAGOSSA — THE FORTRESS OF PAMPLONA THE CONVERSATION. Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. HE portrait painter is born, said old Pacheco. Velazquez’ somewhat J- reserved yet fine-strung temperament, his simple, frank, upright character, fitted him for this department, which inclines more towards the observing and imitative than the creative side of Art ; here he had no need to concern himself with the disturbing elements of fancy, a faculty which so often obtrudes itself in season and out of season. Had he cultivated the philosophy of the schoolmen, he would have certainly sided with the nominalists. He lacked the organ of the universal, and consequently felt no need to give it embodiment ; man, the highest object of the formative arts, he knew only as an isolated being ; for him the individual was the substantia prima of mediaeval philosophy. To his natural bent for portraiture was added his own special training. Long before he could foresee that he was destined to become Court painter, and to be known to posterity almost exclusively as a portraitist — in fact while he was still producing religious and genre pieces in Seville— he had lighted upon a method, by which he acquired a sure hand and the national style of portraiture. The circle of young artists where he may have been the guiding spirit held, as the Florentine and Bruges masters had once held in their way, that there could be no good painting without strict adherence to the model; on the other hand they considered that it did not much matter what model was chosen, provided only the stamp of Nature, the genuine mark of individuality, were imparted to the “ poetic ” or “ legendary ” figure itself. Whatever may be said of the consequences of the restrictions and distractions at Court, Velazquez here enjoyed an immense advantage as a portrait painter. He had for his subjects persons with whom he was thoroughly familiar ; and are not those works of the great portraitists the best and most universally admired which represent persons whom they have had an opportunity of knowing through long or close intimacy ? 252 Velazquez. Bien comprendre son liomme est la premiere qualite da poiiraitiste , said Thore; and the human physiognomy is a book, whose meaning cannot be mastered in a few sittings. Even Raphael Mengs knew so much. When complimented by the elector on his portrait of the singer Annibali (Brera), the remark escaped him : “ Yes, sire, the friend is there ; something kings don’t understand.” Nor did Velazquez’ cardinal virtue, truthfulness, suffer detriment in the atmosphere of the Court. Here he never learned to flatter, but rather seems to have acquired something of the dry scepticism and coldness of the born courtier. No envoy furnishing his sovereign with despatches in cipher, no Saint Simon consigning to his desk the unembellished memoirs of his surroundings for the benefit of posterity, could have been more open or plain-spoken. Not many princes and Courts would even at present be satisfied with such a frank expositor. But in the period of its decline the Court of Madrid w T as still imbued with the genuine old Spanish realistic spirit, which was satisfied to appear as it was. It is at the same time true enough that, in consequence of his resolution to exchange Seville for Madrid, his lot was cast with a some- what melancholy social circle — half Bohemian, half Byzantine. Here was the picture of a nation outwardly presenting the same aspect as in the days of the heroic past, but through political errors and fatal prejudices slowly sinking from her world-wide sw T ay, her destinies in the hands of the last feeble scions of a moribund dynasty. But, as Thore well remarks, the finest portraits, even going as far back as Henry VIII. and Pietro Aretino, were not always those of the finest figures. Yet despite his inferior subjects, Velazquez need not fear comparison with artists of other lands more favoured in this respect, but rather shows to advantage by their side. The choice of his originals, where for the most part there was no choice, may cause surprise ; but what he took in hand seemed to him a matter of indifference, for he felt sure of imparting to apparently the most thankless subjects a lasting interest, such as others failed to secure with their far more promising models and more alluring methods of treatment. There are few who stood less in need of the support derived from the theme itself, the association of ideas, although his works are in this respect so highly suggestive. Where lay his secret ? Of this department of Art he personally entertained a lofty concep- tion. When he declared he knew nobody who understood how to paint a head well, he apparently, meant, not only that Art in its whole compass Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. 253 may be revealed in a portrait, but that here is needed the Art of a great painter. In the same way Ingres called a portrait the touchstone of the painter. Velazquez’ portraits have often been described from the standpoints of impression and expression ; but they have never yet been subjected to analysis at the hands of an artist. The silence of professional critics must therefore be the excuse for my boldness, if I venture as a non-professional to interweave my remarks on the subject with foreign matter. As a portrait painter our artist certainly shows most affinity with the Venetians, and, as already stated, perhaps comes nearer to Tintoretto than to Titian. In one respect his portraits must be grouped rather with those of the previous century than with contemporary works striving after movement and sentiment. Velazquez belongs jointly with the Vene- tians to the champions of the grand style, characterized by great breadth in the lines of both features and figure, by a bold disposition of the surfaces, by unity of motive and severe subordination of details. His figures, taken from the high visual point, are characteristic even as silhouettes , and can be at once recognized. He has alwa}^s the full standing figure in his mind’s eye, even when he delineates it only in half-length or as a bust. Palomino’s advice in this respect is certainly in accordance with his views (Museo ii., 65 ct scql). Hence, even when the subjects gave him long and repeated sittings in the literal sense, he still took a preliminary drawing of the standing model, in order to fix the general aspect, to which everything was afterwards adapted. To portraiture he applied the firm draughtsmanship and delicate modelling, the knowledge of form and that cultivated taste, for which he was indebted to the severe training and abundant stimulating influences of Pacheco’s studio. What he did not owe to this school, and what enables us still to recognize his originals more certainly than by the touch itself, is the truth of the coloured illusion, the truth of the surface treatment ; that transparency of the skin and that freshness of the throbbing life depending on it ; that reflected shimmer of the carnations ; lastly that grey tone, whose function no other artist understood so well. It is here that he deviates most from the colour-sense of the Venetians. Whoever has seen but one important portrait by this master will never forget two impressions — the spirit of the painter’s touch, and the absolute convincing truth, which cannot certainly be demonstrated, but only intuitively perceived, but which may yet at times be strengthened by comparisons. 254 Velazquez. Of modern artists Velazquez was perhaps the first for characterization, a quality which is not so common as is supposed. In portraits even by famous painters there often lurks a spirit alien to the originals — the spirit, for instance, of the artist himself, who in that case is like the actor who represents himself alone. Others again, possibly through fear of this foreign spirit at all intruding itself, have remained satisfied with a purely picturesque exterior aspect of the mask alone, as if they were required to show nothing further behind it. But our master penetrates at once into the heart of his subjects, whose horoscopes might be taken from these portraits, as was said of those of Apelles. He paints the tone of the nerves, the “blending of the sap,” the quantity of iron and gall in the blood, of wisdom and foolish- ness in the brain. “These portraits,” says Thore, “are the noblest and finest in the world, because they depict men so thoroughly understood that they cannot be confounded with other men.” No one has less avoided unpromising forms, which with a sort of defiance he has even neglected to tone down or cast in the shade. He seems to have believed that everybody was capable of pictorial repre- sentation without suppression or addition ; that no being existed who, if placed in the proper attitude and light, would fail so to appear that we should not wish him otherwise. Hence, in direct contrast to Van Dyck he usually omitted to make his figures interesting by picturesque postures, or give them animation by some motived situation. He is perfectly satisfied with the attitudes of tradition or etiquette, which at times are stiff and haughty. “My subject,” he perhaps thought to himself, “must be capable of interesting, not because he does anything interesting, or puts on an interesting face, but because his personality is interesting.” Instead of catching the expression in moments of social excitement, or when animated by the desire to please, he allows his models, so to say, to fall back upon themselves, when all those favourable traits or studied dispositions of the features have vanished. They thus appear indifferent to the searching gaze of all observers, even of the painter himself. If they are nevertheless so lifelike, that is merely a fresh proof that animation and posing are two different things. But still they do betray an expression — one, however, which is almost the abnegation of all expression : that of a cold, haughty nature. They are nearly always turned sideways in three-quarter view, fixing the painter with averted glance, and consequently also following the spectator everywhere. Such a side-glance conveys the impression of pride, if not of disdain. Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. 255 But may not the secret of the effect partly lie precisely in this device ? Vanity, useful and even indispensable for social intercourse, acts less favourably in life and Art. As it needs the judgment of others in support of its own self-estimation, it awakens doubt and contempt, at least on the part of men. It thinks of others and considers how it would gladly appear in their eyes. But pride heeds not how it shall seem ; it suffices unto itself as it is; it troubles itself little about- the approval of others, as Kant said of the Spaniards, to whom he ascribed “ haughtiness.” Nor does pride need to act otherwise ; for the man who wishes only to be, not to seem, if not lovable, at least impresses, inasmuch as he does not seek but accepts recognition ; we must take him as a whole, lights and shades and all. His self-esteem looks like superiority, and excites a feeling of respect, at least when mirrored in the harmless picture of Art, which challenges no man’s pretensions. This, as it seems to me, may be the reason why Velazquez so captivates us when he holds “the mirror up to Nature,” and shows “the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.” For his sake we ask, Who was this Philip, this Borgia ? — -just as in reading Tacitus we still grow interested in those crazy Caesars. It is not merely his realistic or photo- graphic truth, his fidelity to historic records : consider what other sober but less distinguished hands have made of the same subjects. See how he imparts dignity to his buffoons themselves, who through incorrect titles have at times been taken for military commanders or corsairs. These poses, mixed of pride and pretence, this sosiego or composure, what the Italians called intonatura, which rendered the Spaniards at that time so offensive to all foreigners, affect us in Art otherwise than in life, as is the case with so many other things repellent in themselves. Here it may not be out of place to remark that it would be a mistake to suppose that the Spaniards of those times carried these airs about with them even amongst themselves, and in the intimacy of private life. Mynheer van Sommelsdyck had already noticed that they were so extremely sedate, grave and reserved only in public, at the promenades, in the theatre. “ Here,” says Camillo Guidi, “ they become transformed to gods, and you may think yourself lucky if you can elicit from them a few dark oracular words. In confidential intercourse they seem no longer the same people, but just as accessible, chatty, cheerful, frivolous, or reckless as others.” In Velazquez’ portraits this is the most striking feature, while of technical factors the most important is chiaroscuro. Here the changes 25 6 Velazuez. of manner become most obvious in this artist, who is otherwise so uniform, and so little affected by outward influences. At first in his youthful zeal and disgust at the prevailing second-hand style he reduced his whole Art to a single point — to paint with the model before his eyes in a onesided light, with pure, sharply defined shadows. The plastic effect of this system was intensified by the empty, neutral ground. He and his contemporaries of like tendencies were herein guided less by a pessimistic love of gloom, than by repugnance to the flat, the feeble, the prevalent lack of concentration. But he very soon discovered that this plastic effect was often obtained by too large a dose of shade, and might be produced by a minimum of that element. Mere touches and lines of a spare, warm transparent brown dispersed over the features sufficed to remove all flatness from the head, while A dark or a luminous patch behind the figure served to detach it from the ground. From this point of view he treats the ear. The concha, on the light side turned towards the observer, is carefully and vigorously modelled, and even individualized ; probably because it contributes towards the general plastic effect. The hands on the contrary, as elsewhere remarked (p. ill), are treated in a very summary way. After extracting from this manner all that it was capable of effecting, Velazquez’ pictorial sense asserted itself, and he perceived how many elements of the picturesque were here overlooked. Portraits should be plastic by the semblance of bodily fulness and depth, not plastic in the sense that the figures should appear to stand out hard and stony from the empty ground. They should in fact seem to be parts only of a whole full of light and air. He was led to his new luminous system by those portraits which had to be transferred from the chamber to the open air. Here was necessarily introduced a background, an element whose study has a special interest for the portrait painter. Velazquez gives us all imaginable backgrounds, from the simplest dark or clear surfaces to richly furnished interiors and landscape pros- pects. In the early portraits an empty chair or table is often the only indication that the figure is in a room ; or a short oblique projected shadow of the legs that it is not hovering in the air. The empty surface is for the most part disposed diagonally in a darker and a lighter half, standing in contrast with the luminous treatment of the head. Or else a heavy crimson curtain is let down, again diagonally, occasionally afford- ing a ground for the head, but also at times suspended horizontally and Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. 257 falling on one side, thus enclosing a three- or four- cornered dark surface as a setting for the figure. This extremely simple style of conventional environment had to be renounced in the hunting and equestrian portraits, which transformed Velazquez to a landscape painter. Excluding replicas, about a dozen such pieces are extant ; and to these must be added the similar surround- ings in the toper and hermit scenes. On the scenery of these pieces is mainly founded the master’s reputation as a landscape painter, although such prospects were invented exclusively with a view to the figures, and although certain characteristics are common alike to all. In such cases contemporary painters were wont to degrade the land- scape to a mere framework for the figure, or sacrifice it altogether. They brought the figure from the shade into the light, constructing for this purpose a special distribution of the light ; the effigy thus appears in a studio light, the landscape as a twilight- or night- piece, which scarcely attracts attention. Now Velazquez asks himself the question, May not the concentration and unity of interest in the figure be reconciled with a landscape back- ground of intrinsic worth, beauty and above all clearness ? This question presented itself simultaneously with his effort to become independent ol the shading peculiar to his first manner. To the contrasts of light effects he substituted those of colour ; he relieved the function of light and shade by the contrast of coolness and warmth, thereby safeguarding the unity which was often sacrificed to the rich sunny landscapes of the earlier artists. In their works Nature stood only in loose connection with the figure, especially in the absence of a middle distance. In fact the figure looked like an independent picture planted in front of another. Velazquez, on the contrary, brought these backgrounds into a well- considered system of harmonious and contrasting relations to the figure, although so skilfully concealing his purpose that they were often taken for simple prospects. Their distinctive qualities were their purely natural character and the daylight. The scenery is of a rugged nature, mostly lacking those adjuncts of living beings, structures or cultivated tracts. On one occasion only he consented at special request to introduce a battle-scene in the back- ground. On the other hand he deliberately substituted a wilderness for some ornamental grounds in an older equestrian picture which had to be recast. The motives of this scenery were naturally taken from the neighbouring Sierra de Guadarrama, with an elevated foreground, as was usual with the 258 Velazquez. Dutch painters of highland scenery ; the lofty ranges would else seem too oppressive and confining. Velazquez generally seeks for some commanding view over hill and dale rolling away in the distance. Riders and huntsmen stand on some terraced eminence, whence the eye sweeps over a broad ravined valley to the towering crests of a distant mountain chain. The foreground falls somewhat rapidly through several parallel sweeps down to the lowest depression, while the middle distance is broken perhaps by a hill sparely overgrown with brushwood. The contrast is finely conceived between the hazy valley and the blue or even glittering snow-capped summits of the enclosing sierra, where the sky-line of the chain gradually sinks from a culminating point on one side towards 'the table-land. Thus here also we have diagonals, near and distant lines sloping downwards and intersecting the axis of the line of movement of the equestrian group. No one will fail to detect the resemblance with Titian’s Alpine scenes — only this artist’s dolomite peaks are throwm farther back ; their blue is deeper and duller ; the clouds with their firm outlines and white lights more substantial, while the cold aerial tone is invariably permeated by some warm, yellow-red sunset tints. The contours of the Spanish sierras are also grander, simpler, nobler than in those fantastic ruinlike forms of the eastern Alps. By this method Velazquez, despite his much more confined mountain scenery, secured a greater impression of roominess than others with broad lowlands. In Rubens’ portraits, where the visual point lies little above the horizon, the distances are often represented like narrow superimposed stretches. At the same time the Flemish landscapes with their moist re- fracting atmosphere are more vapoury, more saturated with light, more poetic, when compared with those pitilessly clear and cold blue Spanish table-lands. But the most important point is his luminous process. For the hitherto prevalent afternoon and evening lights he substitutes that of the morning. In his finest equestrian portraits the picture is disposed in two large masses, the figure and its stage in a warm yellow, light red and brownish, the landscape in a cold blue tone, each relieving the other. In this saturated, azure, aerial tone Velazquez comes in contact with the older Flemish landscape painters. Carducho who composed his Didlogos on the banks of the Manzanares, compares the surrounding district with Paul Bril’s pictures. I11 this way, despite the all-diffused uniform daylight, our artist was Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. 259 able successfully to detach his figures bodily from the ground. A local colour, such as the chestnut of a horse, remains even in full sunshine sufficiently strong to place the figure with full effect in contrast with the distant view. But he never sacrificed the truth of the local colour itself to such purposes, by giving for instance a warm brownish tone to the face, as does Van Dyck. Philip IV. ’s blonde, whitish profile with a shimmer of blue stands out against the azure sky. It would have been easy by means of deep shading to contrast the mass of the foreground with the back- ground ; but Velazquez does the opposite. A tree, analogous to the columns of interiors, almost invariably stands behind the rider towards the frame of the picture. But here we have none of those dark, obtrusive masses of conventional landscape painters ; the tree is painted in the same grade of light as the background itself, a slender stem with few branches, and crowned with a powdery silver tuft of foliage. Long before Constable he made the discovery that Nature knows nothing of your famous brown tree 1 . The earthy colour of the slope in the foreground is further diver- sified by a broad whitish stretch, such as a line of sandhills, in the middle distance. Both sections of the picture, contrasting in tone, and treated with equal care, are harmonized in diverse ways, the lights for instance on the face, collar, horse’s head, finding their counterpart in those of the clouds and mountain tops. Over the animated lines of motion is thrown the controlling element of absolute repose, as seen in the horizontal lines of clouds across the sky. But the system here described never sank in Velazquez’s hands to mere mannerism. Thus when the horse was white or grey, preventing the usual contrast of colours, he gave up the blue background and risked a uniform tone, bathing the distant prospect and the sky in a whitish light. This is well seen in the two equestrian portraits of Olivares (Prado and Munich), which correspond perfectly in design, but in which the landscape is differently treated in accordance with the different colours of the horses. At the same time the equestrian portraits themselves owe much of their effect to those various surroundings which accompany the figure as music accompanies a tableau-vivant. Remove them in imagination, and their own life seems diminished, the poem becomes transformed to prose. This everlasting, unchangeable Nature, the breath of these upland valleys, which is still wafted towards us as it was towards those long departed 1 Sir George Beaumont once complained that he was puzzled how to place his brown tree. Thereupon Constable threw open the studio door, looking on a park, and asked “ Where the devil do you see your brown tree here?' 1 2 6o Velazquez. generations, seems to share its life with them also. The view of these distant prospects, so soothing to depressed spirits, suits these gloomy figures of a decaying race, contrasting as it does with their narrow mental vision and range of thought. In Palomino’s biography there occurs a puzzling notice of an apparently lost equestrian portrait of Philip IV., like others in full armour, with name age and date 1625. It is here stated that the artist exhibited this “study,” painting on it a sheet of paper, on which, after hearing and considering the judgments, he intended to attach his signature. Such white sheets are found, not alone on several of these equestrian pictures. But on this occasion the horse had been really censured as “ against the rules of Art,” only the judgments were so qualified that it was found impossible to give them consistency. Thereupon the irritated artist cancelled the censured part, but refrained from a second attempt, adding to his signature, instead of pinxit , “ expinxit.'' In all this the biographer finds two noteworthy points — the artist’s modesty in correcting his work on the judgment of non- professionals, and the lesson taught to critics that their judgments were impracticable, possessing at most a negative value, like the opinions of political quidnuncs. Here the remarkable point is the date, 1625, when Velazquez had just completed that large and much-lauded equestrian portrait of Philip. Is it likely that he should have immediately afterwards undertaken a second ? Possibly Palomino’s “ study ” was in fact that first equestrian portrait, as Villaamil suggested. In the inventory of Charles II. (1686) this work is mentioned as removed from its frame — consequently set aside, if not altogether discarded. Velazquez was probably himself no longer satisfied with this firstling, and had undertaken those corrections in order to stop the mouth of the censurers by a practical proof of improved judgment. The incident leads to an important general remark. Very few of Velazquez’s works in the Prado Gallery are free from important revisions, often conspicuous enough to produce a disturbing effect, while nearly all have bands of varying width attached to both sides and the top. These bands are so uniform that they can scarcely have been intended to repair damage by fire or otherwise. As to the revisions, most of them were probably made after the works were finished, the object being to bring them more into harmony with the altered taste of the times. A painter, whose works, like those of Velazquez, were retained to ornament residences and State apartments and which depicted the living occupants of those places, was naturally in a very different position in regard to such works from most artists, who are never again confronted Velazquez as a Portrait Painter. 261 with their compositions once disposed of to patrons or purchasers. The true artist, as was already remarked by Leonardo da Vinci, must often feel a twinge at his past performances ; and Eastlake tells us that “ the best pictures are but blunders dexterously re-mended ” ( Materials , i., 90). We know also that Titian repeatedly touched up, in fact “ re-mended ” paintings that he kept by him. In Velazquez’ case the very purpose of the alterations may partly be indicated by the modifications of his style from time to time. He continually aimed at enlarging and rendering more distinct the space towards the sides and in the perspective depth. In the early works, such as the Water-Carrier and the Bacchus, the groups are, so to say, packed within the frame ; in portraits the head reaches nearly to the upper border, while in some of his later works of this class the figure falls below the middle of the canvas. In the former the sky is a steel blue without true perspective, as in the Vulcan ; in the latter the lights of the figures re- appear in the landscape. Here the figures receive more elbow-room, which Palomino compares to the pauses in music. This free circulation of the air between the groups was called respiration. Amongst the most striking retouchings, from which few of his works are altogether exempt, mention may be made of those on the portrait of Philip (Prado, No. 1071), where the head, in the hard style of the third decade, rests on a bust, the armour and scarf of which are painted in the freest and easiest manner of later times. Reference has already been made to the peculiar condition of the portraits of the Three Royal Sportsmen, who, although separated in point of time, yet seem to have been all painted with the same brush. In all three the landscape is similarly treated, apparently in the manner of the fourth decade. In the portrait of the dwarf El Primo the head belongs to a very early period, and the volume and papers in the foreground are quite in the careful bodegones manner ; but the original background, which probably represented an interior, has been replaced by a hilly landscape. The large equestrian works afford much food for thought. In those of Philip III. and of Margaret we have instances of much earlier representations by different hands, where, to suit the changed taste, Velazquez has repainted the horses and surroundings — parts of the horses even more than once. While the equestrian portrait of the young prince is altogether, and that of Olivares but slightly, retouched, those of the reigning sovereign and his queen have been diversely recast. Such also is the case with 262 V ELAZQUEZ. the portraits of the daughter of Henry IV. and her husband, where horse and landscapes were apparently afterwards renewed. On the other hand the assumption that the head of the Infanta (Prado, No. 1084) is older than the other parts, is a mistaken inference from its erroneous title. Female Portraits. Travellers have often assured us that in scarcely any other land in- habited by the Caucasic race are so many beautiful women to be met as in Spain. This may be so, although such an ethnological fact is certainly less evident in the works of the early national schools of painting. Conse- quently in this respect Spanish is the very reverse of Italian portraiture. The beauty of Spanish women should neither be compared with that of the Roman ladies, nor yet judged according to the standard of statuesque forms. They lack the size which Aristotle held to be indis- pensable to beauty, what Winckelmann calls " the growth suitable for sculpture.” Instead of this lofty beauty Nature has given them charms whose effect is more general, more direct, more lively ; such charms lie in colour and colour contrasts, in the graceful movements of features and body. " What were Toledo’s belles,” exclaims Tirso, " without their grace ? ” — under which term ( donaire ) was also included the charm of the voice ; and Calderon expressly declares that the contrast of colour is an element of the beautiful. But to highly developed epochs alone it is given to paint such elements, and then only when the Art of colour and chiaroscuro, the eye capable of seizing the imperceptible and transitory movements of features and figure, have reached maturity. Those who bear in mind how late it was before Spanish painting arrived at this degree of refinement, will understand why the national poets are so often sceptical on this point. Calderon, for instance, declares that “ light, fire, sun, air, are not to be painted;” hence asks, "Who shall depict a beauty composed of such ethereal elements ? ” On the retablos of the fifteenth, and first years of the sixteenth, century, an attentive eye may occasionally detect a few female faces char- acteristic of the districts where these works were produced. They may still be recognized amongst the peasantry, with whom genuine national types are always best preserved. But the classic period failed to release them from the still narrow fetters of conventional treatment. The fastidious taste of the Vargas, Cespedes, Juanes, Becerras, apeing Italian ideals allowed right of citizenship to none but “ general forms ; ” everything Female Portraits. 263 that savoured of the national or local was voted vulgar by Art circles, profane by the religious world. Pacheco recognizes with a sneer the natural grace of the Andalusian peasant girls, and emphasizes the charms of your golden-haired and sapphire-eyed dames. Thus the pearls of beauty were sought, not in the rich field of the national elements, but in the works of the foreign classical masters. The noble statues of female saints by Montanes, last of Seville’s idealists, have even a touch of the antique ; but his Art never descended to individual types. Till 1 far into the seventeenth century national female loveli- ness remained for the most part untouched either by painter or sculptor. The naturalists first ventured again to transfer to the canvas genu- ine Spanish female types, although at the outset with doubtful taste. Unprofessionals were entranced with the indescribable, melancholy charm of El Greco’s Toledan women and children ; but he found no imitator. Zurbaran’s strange Santas, half fashionably, half fantastically arrayed, with tiny heads, hard lines and sharp features, are taken bodily from models amongst the black-eyed lower classes. Alonso Cano lighted only occasion- ally on real beauties; but his pupil Fray Atanasio (" Bocanegra ”) framed for himself an ideal South Spanish type — a fine oval face, large eyes, dreamy, and with childlike purity. But it was reserved for Murillo to discover the peculiar charm of the Spanish race, and its fitness for the highest flights of the national religious Art. His pictures are full of real portraits ; his Madonna in the Palazzo Corsini, his SS. Justa and Rufina in Stafford House and the Seville Museum, show us his models with the least disguise. But de- spite his great qualities as a portrait painter, as seen in Don Justino Neve’s portrait in Bowood, strange to say, of female portraits by him we possess only that frivolous and seductive denizen of the Triana now in Heytesbury House. Now, one might suppose, the epoch of female portraiture had dawned at last. But the artists still lacked freedom in the representation of beauty. Jealousy formed an ingredient of the Oriental element in the Spanish nature. How reluctantly must a contemporary of Calderon have permitted a being to sit to a painter, whom nobody could look upon with indifferent eyes ! Ladies of rank lived in a half monastic, half Oriental seclusion, never appearing on the promenades or at the Corsi, as in Italy. Their intercourse abroad was mainly restricted to visits in sedan chairs especially to the wealthy nunneries ; even Mass was usually attended in the family oratories. As, however, European customs had penetrated into the Court circles, 264 Velazquez. female portrait painting also was tolerated, but still surrounded with all kinds of precautions. The originals appear to have been little subject to the amiable weaknesses of the sex ; those qualities, which, at least according to the poets, constituted one half of the feminine charms, were rigorously banished, and the expression of dignity, or cold pride, became the rule. Hence it is not very surprising that Spanish galleries contain so few passable portraits of women, while the category of “ beauties ” is scarcely represented at all. Palomino alludes to the custom in France, Germany, and Italy (were he writing at present he would have to head the list with England), of exhibiting large and small portraits of distinguished ladies “without prudery or disguise,” adding that in Spain people were much more punctilious. And this he wrote under the Bourbon regime (1723). No doubt in the time of Philip II., when the spirit of the renaissance was most potent, fine Court ladies were painted for the Pardo Portrait Gallery, but even these are by the Dutch Antonio Moro. Other- wise portraits of “beauties” were imported from Venice, for instance, and in the Museum is still to be seen a Courtesan by Tintoretto, of which several copies have been made. And Titian himself sent to Madrid that likeness of his fair Lavinia, adapted however to Spanish taste as Herodias with the head of John the Baptist. At the Court of Philip IV. also, relieved as it otherwise was from many prejudices, our master was not called upon to paint many ladies. Is this to be regretted ? No doubt Richard Ford declares that “ Velazquez was emphatically a man, and the painter of men,” 1 as if an artist of such vigorous characterization could have had no vocation for female loveliness. But even in aesthetic questions how often is the a priori necessity of a fact demonstrated before the fact itself is established ! It was forgotten that his portraits of little girls, such as the Infanta Margaret and her associates and his own daughter, are unapproach- able, exciting the unqualified admiration of painters, connoisseurs and unprofessionals alike. And such subjects are, to say the least, not easier than full-grown women. Still that prejudice is apparently justified by the catalogue of the master’s extant works of this class. The Madrid Museum has only one genuine Spanish female portrait by him, and although there are numerous royal princesses, they are merely replicas of a very limited number of originals, which moreover belong to a foreign (Teutonic) stock. Few of them have sufficient personal charms or mental endowments to awaken the observer’s interest. Penny Cyclopcedia , 1 843. The Sibyl. 265 In the case of Philip’s first queen, Isabella of Bourbon, most noble- minded of all contemporary women, the artist seemed to have lacked full facility for study, as she was an unwilling subject. The second and very insignificant Mariana of Austria became yearly more repellent. To the fundamental principle of suppressing all appearance of amiability was here added a monstrous style of dress, which exceeded everything hitherto devised in deforming the human figure. Even Calderon remarked that the etiquette and fashion of the times was no improvement to beauty. However our master’s love of truth by no means tended to soften, but rather to accentuate, these elements with a precision more desirable in the chronicler than in the artist, and the natural consequence is that his ladies’ gallery is scarcely calculated to evoke enthusiasm. But was it his business to improve Nature after a fashionable formula in the manner of the Mignards and Lelys ? In the presence of such models and of such a rigid etiquette must not all Art have felt itself helpless ? Even such a depictor of beauty as Mengs has given us in the Electress Maria Josepha one of the ugliest female heads that ever wore a crown. With better subjects would not Velazquez have shown himself in quite a different light ? In my opinion this question may be answered in the affirmative, if the facts are weighed and not merely counted — that is, if we carefully consider the few extant portraits of genuine Spanish women known to be by his hand. There are three only, and unfortunately all three of unknown persons. They are and remain puzzles, only that the unsolved riddles of Art are after all clear as noonday, needing no solution. The Sibyl. The only Spanish lady in the Madrid Gallery, and the earliest of the three, is the so-called Sibyl (No. 1089 ; size, 0’92 x 039 m.). It is first heard of in the St. Ildefonso inventory of 1774, where it is described as a woman in profile holding a tablet. That it represents the artist’s wife is possible, but not yet shown to be probable, for a resemblance can scarcely be detected with any of the women in the Vienna family picture. The portrait is remarkable as the only instance in which the painter has selected a profile more of a plastic than pictorial character. The lineaments of this profile are less beautiful than interesting, more full of character than pleasing, but in any case purely Spanish. The clear straight open brow, such as recurs in all the following portraits, combined with the large deepset eye calmly gazing into the distance, imparts to the features the breath of intelligence. Its serious cast is enhanced by the shadows over the forehead 266 Velazquez. and eyes caused by the light coming from behind. Is it the glance of the artist or the seer? Unfortunately the tablet which should have answered this question is a blank. The grey gown and yellow mantle are of almost ideal simplicity. Hence she would seem to have wished herself represented in some poetic character, perhaps after the model of some classic work known to her, just as Domeni- chino, for instance, painted his fair Maria Sibylla as St. Cecilia or the Cumsean Sibyl. Only one can scarcely recall a representation of the Sibyl in the severe sculp- turesque style of this Spanish dame, who seems in the middle of her twenties, when, accord- ing to Lope, southern beauties began to fail. But with all this simplicity of treatment special attention has been paid to the hair, which seems to betray the artist ; only in this respect what Spanish belle is not an artist ? The rich black frizzly mass is rolled up above the forehead like a natural diadem, and covers part of the cheek. Behind, it is gathered up by a kind of netted yellow band from which a wide green end falls down the back. The finely-modelled neck is encircled by a string of pearls and a narrow frill. The picture is painted on a yellowish-grey ground, with a free broad touch in smooth, thin colours. The grey tone, as well as the profile which painters regard as insufficient for the likeness in portraits, agrees well with the character of reserve impressed upon this noble figure, which is turned from the light and from the observer. THE SIBYL. Lady with a Fan. 1 his enigmatic Sibyl peering into space is followed by a figure, which on the contrary gazes with almost disturbing effect on the spectator. The Lady with a Fan was sold at the Lucien Bonaparte sale ( 1 86 1 ) for Lady with a Fan. 26 7 passing afterwards to the Aguado Gallery, where a very unsuccessful steel engraving was made. At the Aguado sale (March 1843) it was bought for 1,275 francs by a Mr. Moran, apparently acting for Lord Hertford, and it now adorns the gallery of Sir Richard Wallace ; size, 365 x 27 inches. “ There is no other painting that better represents both Spain and Velazquez,” said Thore, who saw it at the Manchester Exhibition. Here are the eyes of a Juno, small delicately-shaped snub nose, warm glowing carnations, well-formed cherry-red mouth, long full neck with string of dark beads, but at too obtuse an angle with the bust ; hair brushed back from the somewhat hard forehead, and then brought round in soft brown locks to the cheeks. Thus she stands, turned to her right, looking front, and grace- fully holding the hem ot the black lace mantilla high up on her bosom. This manto was one of the most “killing” articles of the Madrilena’s wardrobe, often cursed by husbands and fathers, once even denounced by the censure of a royal edict (1639). By its means they could, with a simple movement of the dainty little fingers, either com- LADY WITH A FAN. pletely veil themselves or coquettishly show just one eye, or else, as here, enframe in sombre black the loveliest of bosoms, thanks to this low cut olive-brown dress. Besides the quite dark or deadened contrasts of the attire, the narrow crimped hem of the chemisette (as Titian recommends) serves to give a still warmer tone to the southern complexion, the freshness of which is secured by an unusually rich impasto. The hands are concealed in loose light grey leather gloves, with lace cuffs ; but besides the beaded necklace no jewels. The right hand holds the fully unfurled fan, which is turned to the observer like an eloquent hiero- 268 Velazquez. glyphic. On the left arm hangs the many-coiled rosary with its bluish bow. Thus we have here the three dumb instruments, of which every Spanish belle is a perfect connoisseur, the mantilla and fan for action, the rosary to mask the attack, for she is now in her “ war paint." The glance of the brown eyes is proud, almost hard, a strategic glance, which under outward coldness conceals impatience and passion. It conveys a question, if not an ultimatum. Here is the moment for a bold word; hesitate an instant and she will never forgive you. Who is she and whence comes she ? Probably from Mass in the Vitoria, the “ladies’ parish," as Tirso calls it, from which it is but a step to the Calle Mayor , “ where love is bartered by measure and weight.” Or she might suit the popular avenue of the Prado ; only the painter has indicated nothing, merely giving her a greenish-grey background. Is it one of those Circes, for whom the jeunesse doree of those days “ went to the dogs?” — or a Toledan flirt of the comedies, one of those who on receiv- ing the holy water 1 flashed back a glance that turned the heads of cavaliers on the eve of their wedding ? A maze of coldness and fire, of bigotry and worldliness, of pride and coquetry, or worse ? Of our unknown there is another portrait, which seems more representa- tive and less motived than this. Since the middle of the last century it has been in the Duke of Devonshire’s Chiswick House collection (size 28 x 1 81 - inches). The chief difference lies in the dress, which is of richer, more costly materials, especially lace of brighter colour, yet more quiet and aristocratic. The plain black mantilla has been exchanged for one of rich lace, whose hem cut in floral pattern encroaches more on the face. She wears a pearl necklace and a lemon-coloured silk gown, with black lace volants on under- skirt and sleeves. On the other hand the bosom is covered by a white lace collar, and instead of the elegant fan the right hand holds a meaningless handkerchief. But the large gloves have been forgotten, and yet the hands are by no means “five-leaved lilies.” Although merely sketched, they are strong, which for a Spanish lady of quality means much. Possibly this richly-arrayed figure served as an experiment, the results of which were turned to account for the other portrait. The canvas seems cut very close. Juana dc Miranda. Lastly, an authentic portrait of a very elegant lady is figured in the third picture, which has lately passed from the Dudley Gallery to the 1 It was the fashion for gallants to stand at the font and hand the holy water on the tips of their fingers to the senoras passing in and out. — Translator. 269 Juana de Miranda. Berlin Museum. Of the two large female portraits now in this museum the last arrival is certainly the more attractive. Its pedigree goes no farther back than the collection of Sebastian Martinez in Cadiz,, although not mentioned by A. Ponz in his description of that place. In the year 1867 it was purchased by Lord Ward of Dudley from the Salamanca Gallery for ninety-eighty thousand francs (size, P37 x 1 m.). The figure stands out very plastically from the light grey ground, almost in the form of two super-imposed cones, with the conventional pose and gestures of the portraits of the royal princesses. The shape of the far- thingale and the hair are also in the same fashion, which lasted from the third to the fifth decade of the seventeenth century. She has the easy attitude of refined culture, although the proud bearing, the firm grasp of the arm of the red chair, and the expression seem to betray more charac- ter than is seen in the royal ladies. In the quick glance of the brown eyes and the play of the mouth there is something sprightly, exult- ing, even roguish, at variance with the cold seriousness of highborn dames. “ The gentlemanliness of the painter is reflected, so to say, in the picture; its re- finement, its freedom from affectation, appear in the absence of anything like self-consciousness on the part of the sitter, so that we infer the perfect mastery and consummate ease with which the artist worked." 1 And surely the lady herself must have been well pleased to be so depicted ! The features, expressive of a resolute character, are marked by a high sti aight forehead, large orbits toned by bushy eyebrows and shadows ; deepset eyes, not large but intelligent, of the same colour ; depressed nose, with 'pert up-turned tip ; finely-shaped, long and very firm mouth ; full 1 Athenceit 7 n i., p. 118. JUANA DE MIRANDA. 2 JO Velazquez. round chin, cheeks with the faintest tinge of red. The rather broad pro- portions of the head are somewhat balanced by the auburn hair towering high above the forehead and the locks falling over temples and cheeks. This genuine Spanish face would appear to have agreed more with the local than with our northern ideas of beauty. Calderon, who has given us his ideal in the “ Daughter of Air,” requires black eyes, but the hair between black and blonde, and a large mouth. In the left hand, falling by her side and holding a short fan, we see the original intention of giving a curve to the wrist hastily concealed without a further remodelling of the member, which consequently seems somewhat formless. The ornamentation is “ rich, not gaudy,” comprising a diamond rose in the hair above the right temple, earrings of three large pearls, and a pearl necklace. The lechuguilla, or horizontal collar, which would have here produced a good effect amid so many vertical lines, is replaced by a very modest flat collar, answering to the go/illa of the male attire. She wears a floral, black velvet gown, the under-sleeves and high neck- band of blue interwoven with gold stars, the latter further trimmed with gold lace. Over the dress hangs a long, heavy gold chain, with links of a rosette pattern, and supporting a sumptuous jet pendent. On the index and little fingers of the left as well as the right hand are three rings with large stones, also in rosette-shaped settings. As is usualty the case, the ground is white with a bluish tinge. Over this everything is disposed in three notes ; the clear and lifelike flesh tint, with thin transparent brown for the narrow shadows, hair and eyes ; the black (and blue) of the gown, and the light grey ground. The brown shadows especially point to the fourth decade, and occur also both in the portrait of Montanes and in that of the Unknown Man in the Dresden Gallery. On the reverse of the canvas, which, however, has been lined with a fresh strip, the name of Velazquez’ wife, Juana de Miranda, is said to be inscribed in an old style of writing. The only objection to this identification is, perhaps, the rich costume. At that time our master’s stipend was modest enough, and far from regularly paid ; and, although his income may have been eked out by private commissions, still he could scarcely have afforded to array the daughter of Pacheco in these costly pearl necklaces and gold chains. On the other hand, the concurrent titles of the Sibyl and his wife on the foreground of the Vienna picture, which might also be his daughter Francisca, are unsupported by any evidence. Neither has The Duchess of Ciievreuse. 271 much resemblance either with this portrait, or with each other, while the name Miranda itself is of frequent occurrence in the Court of Philip IV. Assuredly no one can behold these portraits without a feeling of regret that Velazquez should have been prevented by the prejudice of the times from leaving us more numerous specimens of his skill in this branch of portraiture. From the few still extant we may infer that he was dis- tinguished from other noted painters of Court beauties by one quality — the absence of that conventionalism which, once accepted by “ Society,” becomes impressed on everything, relentless, uniform, unartistic as fashion itself. The Duchess of Ciievreuse. “Guests arrive here daily,” wrote a chronicler in 1638, "and more is spent on them than on the armies.” Amongst these was the Duchess of Chevreuse, who filled the times of Richelieu and Mazarin with her intrigues. Of a portrait of this celebrity the first and only particulars have quite recently been made public. Marie de Rohan, successively Duchess of Luynes and Chevreuse, was one of the most fascinating women of the period. Her life was an uninter- rupted series of love adventures and cabals. Richelieu hated and drove her from the Court because of her inconvenient influence over Queen Anne, and, on hearing of the seizure of some correspondence with that princess, she fled in alarm to Spain. Here she was well received at Court, where people were eager to interrogate the confidante of the king’s sister, with whom all direct communication had been suspended for some twenty years. Olivares especially was impatient to welcome a person of kindred sentiment, and after their first interview at Barajas, near Madrid, he must have felt gratified at her remark, that “ the reality exceeded the fame of so great a minister.” She made her entry into the capital in December 1637, and was assigned a residence in the Alba Palace. At the royal hunting-party, held in her honour, at El Pardo, she drove by the side of Queen Isabella, with the Princess of Carignan. On this occasion we are told that as many as forty wild boars were driven into the enclosure, and that the spectacle lasted three hours. In January 1638 Velazquez painted her in French costume and style of head-dress. 1 A fair complexion, blonde hair, animation and grace, quick wit, and knowledge of mankind, combined to make this eccentric woman a type of the great Frenchwomen of the period. But she would scarcely have found herself flattered in the portrait by our master. 1 Memorial historico Espanol , vol, xiv. 2/2 Velazquez. It also appears that Velazquez painted an English lady, whose bust was found in his residence in the palace after his death. 1 But what has become of the portrait of that Dona Juana Eminente, which was in the Spanish collection in the Louvre (No. 298; 079x0-60 m.)? u The eyes of this charming Spanish lady—” says the Kunstblatt (1839, 166) — " do not look, they speak ; the model of the head is surprisingly beautiful ; a lovely countenance, with winsome mouth, round w-hich plays a still more winsome smile.” Can Palomino have referred to any of these portraits when he speaks of a lady "of rare perfection,” whose portrait by Velazquez, was a great success, and in whose honour Don Gabriel Bocangel composed an epigram preserved in the Museo (iii., 334) ? Isabella of Bourbon. A good portrait of none of the royal ladies of this period would be more acceptable than that of Philip IV.'s first consort, the daughter of Henry IV. and Mary dei Medici. Her noble and pure character, her capa- city for government, the high qualities displayed during the brief term of her regency, lastly her fate, raised her far above all her contemporaries. Isabella was two years older than Philip, to whom she was betrothed in 1615. The charming presence of the } r oung queen inspired romantic enthusiasm, while her public administration later in life secured the vener- ation of the people. In the interval lay long years of obscurity, neglect, and coercion. “ The best queen and the most lamented on the Spanish throne,” exclaimed Bossuet in his funeral oration at the obsequies of her daughter, Maria Theresa. Fearing her influence on the king Olivares had deprived her not only of political power, but also of her husband’s heart, by diverting his affections to unworthy objects. He gave her his hump- backed wife as chief lady-in-waiting, and this virago exercised such vigilance over the movements and the very language of her victim that Isabella became the object of universal sympathy. She was less free than the humblest of her menials, and her feelings as a Frenchwoman were slighted in the rudest manner. Yet she took the warmest interest in the fate of the land, and this feeling was but embittered by the certainty of being able to give the king much better advice than he received from Olivares. But when the king went off to the seat of war in Catalonia (1642), Isabella was appointed gobernadora (regent), and her administration during these difficult times earned for her universal esteem and homage. 1 Inventory of 1661 ; Documentos ineditos, 424. Isabella of Bourbon. 2 73 When the “ Prince’s Regiment” was raised in Madrid she visited the head- quarters, addressed the men and inspired the apathetic officers with a spark of her own enthusiasm. A wealthy tradesman having increased his war contribution from ten to fifty thousand ducats received her public thanks, whereupon the Countess Olivares openly admonished her against making use of such condescending language towards a subject. To this Isabella made answer : “ The kings and queens, my ancestors, built up this monarchy by courtesy ; through the lack of courtesy shown by you and your husband it is going to destruction.” Three days after Olivares’ fall the king visited his sister Margarita, in the Discalceate Nunnery and requested her to recommend “ his favourite to God that He might grant him an enlightened spirit for government.” And when she asked who might that be he replied, “ My favourite is now the queen.” But these efforts brought on an inflam- mation, which she felt would prove fatal. “ I shall come, but not to see,” she said to the Prior of the Escorial, who had invited her to inspect the grounds which had lately been enlarged. The king sent her a set of diamonds from Saragossa with the assurance that “ he valued her health and her life above his kingdom.” ‘'Let him not come,” she sent word in reply, “ lest the Catalonian expedition be endangered ; ” and she added : “Now I am sure of the king’s affection; « but this ornament I shall never wear — he will see me again only in death.” And when the end came, on October 6, 1644, the Venetian envoy Sagredo wrote : “ She united with the highest statesmanship an indescribable good- ness ; she displayed her virtues through a friendliness and benevolence which exceeded the traditional customs of Spanish princes, and awakened a heartfelt love in all who approached her.” Spain possesses only one likeness of Isabella, the equestrian portrait in the Prado, which had formed a pendant to that of the king at the entrance to Buen Retiro. Here it was seen in 1679 by that Frenchwoman, whose description is apparently the earliest extant of any work by Velazquez : “ Elle est a cheval, vetue de blanc, avec une fraise au cou et un gardinfant. Elle a un petit chapeau garni de pierreries, avec des plumes et une aigrette. Elle etait grasse, blanche et tres-agreable : les yeux beaux, fair doux et spirituel.” Judging from the features she was about twenty-five years old, while 18 ISABELLA OF BOURBON. 274 V'elazquez. horse and surroundings were evidently repainted much later by Velazquez himself. But besides our master’s style at too wide-apart periods, there are also obvious indications of a foreign hand. Everything in the figure except the countenance, even the hands, the dress, the trappings reaching more than half down the horse’s shinbones, are executed in the studiously dry manner of the early Court painters without regard to perspective or free air. On the other hand the head and other exposed parts of the grey palfrey as well as the whole landscape were repainted in a very clear tone certainly not before the year 1640. The superb animal, compared by Palomino to a swan, is ambling towards the left. The rider, who turns round, shows no resemblance to the well-known features of her father. The face is painted with extreme delicacy and luminosity in the clear reflected light of the broad tulle ruff. Specially beautiful are the large brown eyes standing wide apart under a somewhat elevated forehead, which is brushed free of the finely frizzled brown hair with a white plume behind. The sleeves are shown of a white silk jacket embroidered with silver stars, a similarly ornamented high neck-band being attached to the heavy, nut-brown, gold-embroidered riding cloak, on which her initials are repeated and which fall down to the border of the housing. The painter has also chosen a white ground tone for the landscape — a hilly waste sparsely strewn with scrub and underwood, without a single tree or mass of foliage to indicate the foreground. On the right is a flat hill, on the left a sloping ravine opening up a vista of water and a little church with four-pointed tower, a fort with look-out, beyond which the hazy hills are scarcely distinguishable from the clouds. The majority of Isabella’s portraits outside Spain are by pupils work- ing under the eye of the master after his sketches, or else with his somewhat careless co-operation. Many appear to have been presented to foreign Courts during her lifetime. Of all the best claim to originality is possessed by the reduced replica of our equestrian portrait which came to light about the year 1874 in the Uffizi. Possibly it may have been sent to Florence towards the year 1638 with the equestrian portrait of Philip IV. now in the Pitti Palace. The large figure in Hampton Court appears to have also been sent with that of the king and in the same year. 1 Here Isabella stands before 1 “ I shall have the king and queenes pictures for the queene,” writes Sir A. Hopeton on July 26, 1638 (Sainsbury’s Rubens , p., 353). On October 29, 1651 during the Commonwealth, was sold, “the now Oueen of Spain at length,” with the king’s portrait, for £40. Mrs. Jameson calls it “a very intelligent face, with an The Two Little Maidens. 275 the shaft of a huge column, a little dog barking at her. The brown wooden tone, looking as if faded, is disagreeable, nor are the hands treated worthily. Quite similar to this are the recently discovered three- quarter-length figure in the Imperial Gallery, Vienna; and that in the Henry Huth collection — in my opinion a better specimen — which was purchased for T300 from the Spanish collection in the Louvre (No. 249). A youthful half-length figure in a yellow robe with dark flowers was acquired by Richard Ford from General Meade’s collection (25 x 19 inches). In all of these the face of the equestrian portrait recurs, more or less modified, with the same earnest and intelligent look. In her left hand is the closed fan, the right rests on an armchair, and she generally wears a silver-embroidered quilted gown with peaked bodice, expanding like a bell and covering the feet, necklace of two or more strings of pearls ; colour with spare impasto. The portrait in the Christiansborg Gallery, Copenhagen, represents her somewhat differently and more youthful. Here the features still lack the expression of joyless weariness, the eyes are intelligent and bright, the black costume displays to advantage the fine proportions. (No. 427; size 81^ x 49 inches). Doubtless none of these works do full justice to the queen. When asked by the Duchess of Chevreuse for her portrait for her sister in England Isabella replied that she was not fond of -having herself painted. This circumstance perhaps explains the uniformity, the constantly recurring brown dress, the lack of animation in these portraits. Was the artist put out at having so often to copy the same painting ? And why so much reluctance on the part of the queen ? Was it because the Spanish Court painter’s manner of treatment was so opposed to French taste in these matters ? The Two Little Maidens. Good painters of children are highly prized even amongst the great artists. Titian, Correggio, Murillo and others, who by common consent were specially happy in depicting childlike forms, movements and grace, were all endowed with the genius of light and colour. Such artists have to learn the art of grasping the impalpable, of unlearning what they have learnt with so much study. expression of consideration and decision ( Companion to the Private Galleries of Art in London, 1844, p. 30 7). Hampton Court, No. 90, siz$ 99 x 58 inches. Stirling- Maxwell had a miniature of this, an engraving of which appears on the title-page of his Life of Velazquez. 2j6 Velazquez. Since the year 1638 Madrid possessed one of the prototypes in this department, the Worship of Venus, that wonderful idyll of Titian’s youthful fancy. This painting had become the standard of the Roman artists, by the study of which men like Poussin and Fiammingo sought to recover the way to pure childlike nature amid the vagaries of the times. It is remarkable that Velazquez was rivalled by few in the soft, easy, transparent touch needed for the treatment of childhood, and that some of his freshest laurels were gained in the nursery. But this artist of powerful characterization was at the same time a master of aerial and light effects. He probably earned the warmest applause of his patrons by his repre- sentations of the little Prince Balthasar and his later born sister. The rapture of their fond parents and of the Court, attested by countless repetitions, is in this case shared by posterity. Their portraits are still besieged by stu- dents and copyists, and the general appreciation knows nothing more flattering to say of any charming little blonde than that she resem- bles one of Velazquez’ princesses. But these were children of Teutonic stock, and it may be asked why he has given us only one of Spanish blood. “The Little Spanish Maidens,” says Madame d’Aulnoy, “ are whiter than ala- baster, and so lovely that they are taken for angels, though to be sure they change strangely, parched by the sun, turned yellow by the air." The two half-length portraits in the Madrid Museum (Nos. 1087, 1088 ; size 0-58 X 0-46 m.) are so like, that they would in any case be taken for sisters, were they not almost beyond doubt one and the same subject. But as the painter had two daughters differing only twenty months in age (born 1619 and 1621), it would be somewhat surprising if the hunters for titles failed to assure us that these were in fact Francisca and Ignacia. The year 1626, however, will suit neither the costume nor the style. Of the two the better drawn and more deftly painted, and conse- VELAZQUEZ’ DAUGHTER. (?) Celebrities and Obscurities. 277 quently the later, is No. 1087, holding a lapful of roses. In similar attitudes ladies and children are seen in park views strolling about or seated on the grass. Is this some aristocratic little lassie, whose almost sad, pleading look tells us she has no intention of giving up her floral plunder ? — or is it a flower-girl, who timidly offers her roses for sale to a lady ? Anyhow, as she stands there, looking you full in the face with large eyes, she is herself the picture of a budding rose. The round head and rather short neck resting on high shoulders are enframed by two heavy brown plaits falling from the temples downwards. The tone of the carnations is distinctly warmer and deeper than in all the paintings of royal children and ladies. The nu thrown frock with puffed sleeves slashed with grey is relieved by ornamental ties and bows of ribbons in the hair, on shoulder, neck, and wrists. The second picture (No. 1088) might be taken for a first attempt, where, through the child’s restlessness or the painter’s hurry, some in- correct drawings have been made in the position of eyes and mouth. The hands are held apart, and the bow on the breast is white and red. But however this be the painting can by no means be taken for a study from which the first was finished. Its genuinely childlike expres- sion lightly touched off and the traces of growth lead to the inference that the first also was taken from the life, perhaps some little time after the other. Celebrities and Obscurities. Quevedo. Above so many contemporary writers, whether already consigned to oblivion or still known to fame, one man, Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, towers head and shoulders. His words at least have still a living force for the modern Spaniard, who no longer entertains anything more than a distant sentiment of patriotic' veneration even for such a name, for instance, as that of Calderon. It might seem as if beyond the Pyrenees there was a general dearth in the seventeenth century of that hardening of the brain, whence spring statesmen and captains, thinkers and discoverers. But as a protest against this assumption stands the name of Quevedo (born 1580 in Burgos), probably the greatest intellect of the period, although even he did not escape the contagion of the general decadence of morals and good taste. In his heart fully sympathizing with the old national ideas, he was still thoroughly at home amid the surrounding actualities of every order. With one hand 2 7 8 V ELAZQUEZ. he scattered great truths, some now uttered for the first time; with the other he painted, with a brush Zola himself might envy, the foulest dregs of Spanish Society, as well as the turbid seethings and riotous storms of his own undisciplined heart. He depicted himself as “ a man of honour born unto evil ; a person of birth, to become a man of as great powers as weaknesses , of good understanding and feeble memory ; poor of sight and results ; consigned to the devil, pledged to the world, delivered up to the flesh ; large of eye and conscience ; black-haired and black-fated ; of lofty brow and thoughts.” As he also limped (they called him el diablo cojuelo ) we have the elements of the satirist as complete as could well be wished. In the pitilessly crushing bitterness of his scorn, as well as in his powerful intellect he resembles Jonathan Swift, as he also does in his shipwrecked life, only that in his case misfortune came from without alone. The Dean of St. Patrick’s missed the goal of his ambition thanks to a tolerably harmless allegory on Church parties, which happened to offend the feelings of Queen Anne. Quevedo, whose gran tacano was spiced with frightful blasphemies, never seriously aw'akened the suspicion of the Inquisition. His portrait, although absent from the company in the Prado, on which in his day he threw such a sharp, often such a lurid, light, still exists, truer in colour and tone than that of any other contemporary poet. In Don Aureliano Guerra y Orbe’s careful biography the numerous engraved likenesses are critically discussed, and all traced back to a small and feeble medallion by Juan de Noort on the copperplate title-page of the Parnaso Espanol issued in 1648. On this sheet, drawm but not designed by Alonso Cano, 1 the poet is being crowned by Apollo in presence of the Nine Muses, and a satyr lying in a cave points to the medallion, which Guerra thinks the most authentic portrait of Quevedo. Why should all engravers before the time of Carmona have given us nothing but more or less free copies of this poor medallion, which was drawn two years after Quevedo’s death, and which is only I ‘36 inch high ? It is difficult to understand how they could have remained ignorant of Velazquez’ original portrait, which never left Spain till the present century, which was described by travellers and often even copied. This original itself is the source of the small medallion, and it is no secret that its present resting-place is Apsley House. Lately a still older and finer engraving, quite different from the medallion, was supposed to have been discovered in one also by Juan de Noort standing before that of the poet, Epicteto AT 0 CA 1 D. J. A. Inv. j)£L I uan N° ort S cu - Celebrities and Obscurities. 279 y Phocilides (Madrid : 1635). But this is merely the sheet in the Carderera collection (now in the National Library) mentioned by Guerra, which also reappeared in the Antwerp edition (engraved by Clouwet), and the authenticity of which is questionable. The Velazquez described by Palomino (Museo iii., 333) was in the last century in Don Francisco Bruna’s collection, Seville, where it was seen by Twiss. 1 A rough copy hangs in the National Library, Madrid, and a similar replica, formerly in the Yriarte Gallery, was acquired by Jose Madrazo, and is known from a litho- graph by Camaron. The small spectacled head in the La Caze Gallery (No. 28) ascribed to Murillo, is an excellent portrait, but not of Quevedo. To the poet, who was an admirer of Velazquez, is due the earliest known testi- mony to our master’s excel- lence by a distinguished pen. It occurs in the Silva ( Par - naso), where Velazquez is mentioned immediately after the great Italians, and where all the distinctive notes are touched upon, which later writers have discovered in his paintings. Such are : quevedo. Truth, not merely resemblance ; perspective and fulness, softness of carnations, animation, accuracy compared to that of the mirror, mastery of technique, unblended touch. Our original cannot have been painted after Quevedo’s last confinement in the underground dungeon of St. Marcos, near Leon (1639-43), whence he emerged a broken man. It dates from the time of his prosperity, perhaps when he was secretary to the king in 1632. It is a powerful, 1 “ An original portrait of Quevedo, with spectacles, by the same Velazquez. A fine engraving, by Carmona, of this picture is inserted in the 4th vol. of the Spanish Parnassus.'' — Travels in Spain , p. 308. 280 Velazquez. massive head covered with abundant hair, turned a little sideways, painted on quite a dark brown ground, which becomes somewhat lighter above the right shoulder. The colour is perfectly uniform, of a cool, coppery tone, similar to that of the ^Esop and Menippus. Ouevedo has left us in his poetry a detailed humoristic description of his outward appearance as the mirror of his inner man, and this description agrees altogether with our portrait. The brow is high, the strongest, broadest light being concentrated on the upper middle part ; broad bosses also ascend obliquely from the root of the nose, and he was rather proud of his broad open forehead with its two horizontal scars — testimonio dc valiente. The eyes lie here behind the large round glasses of horn spectacles whose frame projects a shadow on the face. For this sharpsighted observer had been afflicted with intense shortsightedness since his university years in Alcala, where he took the theological degree in his fifteenth year. had injured his vision by incessant reading in bed, at his meals, on his journeys, when he carried about in a leather pouch a hundred very small volumes, some in Oriental type. “The eyes were large, round and open, clear as crystal,” sa}’s Lerma; and were by himself described as at once “dim and bright.” Behind the glasses, as we here see, they have a fixed, cold, steady, penetrating stare, and the * painter has apparently distinguished this stare from the somewhat aristo- cratic side-glance which he elsewhere usually reserves for persons of rank. It is the look neither of poet nor philosopher, but rather of the politician, of the man of the world piercing through outward show to the motives concealed behind words and actions, a look calculated to embarrass, and accompanied by a touch of contempt, just as in the mouth itself are expressed scorn and defiance. Owing to the light reflected from the glasses he seems to emerge from a deeper and darker background. Despite his observant gaze, his whole features and pose of the head betray a certain combativeness, something of the swordsman as well as of a person quick at repartee. For he lacked the qualities neither of physical nor moral courage. Although when the occasion served a master of irresistible flattery and of diplomatic reserve, he was still of an outspoken temperament, possessing, through experience and vast knowledge, a right of uttering the truth such as mere freedom of speech and of the press is apparently incapable of imparting. That such a man could hold his ground at Court till his sixtieth year shows that there was at least nothing petty in the despotism of Philip IV. The black wavy hair, contrasting with brownish eyebrows, falls full The Sculptor Martinez Montanes. 281 and loose on both sides of the face, covering the ears, but rolling up above the forehead, and already revealing a few silver threads. The head rests on stout shoulders and a very high chest. The inflated nostrils enable the observer to read between the lines the man's true character, which it must be confessed is somewhat masked behind these apparently expressionless features. This restless, fiery character comes more to the surface in the remarkable terra-cotta bust in the National Library, the authorship of which has long been an unsolved puzzle. Although generally referred to Alonso Cano it shows not a trace of this artist's plastic manner. In my opinion it is the work of an Italian, and was probably brought back by Quevedo himself from Naples. It has something of the spirit of Lorenzo Bernini’s heads, while its free Italian treatment contrasts with the reserved if not cere- monious manner of Spanish portraiture. It is the only instance in which Velazquez shows to disadvantage by the side of a contemporary treating the same subject. The bust has neither name nor signature, but is easily identified by the scars on the forehead. The likeness also is obvious, although the expression is somewhat different — less firm and defiant than that of Velazquez’ portrait. It is the head of a man, whose life had no settled purpose, whose writings were pamphlets for the hour, whose poems were u occasional pieces ; ” a man, who in exile and in prison spun out long- winded treatises on some biblical or classical text, whose chief work in fact as well as in name resembled Dreams, a wreath of fancies strung loosely together ; a man whose eye peered out into the infinite, but who like the helmsman in the storm catches glimpses only of his star between the clouds, and who at last makes shipwreck on the rocks. The Sculptor Martinez Montanes. In the year 1636, when Philip IV. 's equestrian statue was in progress, the already aged Sevillan sculptor, Juan Martinez Montanes, was summoned to Madrid to prepare a plastic model of the head for Florence. Although no mention is made of such a model in the voluminous correspondence between Madrid and Florence on that great work, and although there is no record of a bust of Philip larger than life in Italy, the fact is placed beyond doubt by the petition of September 19, 1648, addressed by Montanes to the Board of Trade for both the Indies discovered by Cean Bermudez in the archives of that Court. In the terms of this document the sculptor was invited by Philip u to prepare an effigy of His Royal Person, which was to be sent to 282 Velazquez. the Grand Duke of Florence who had requested it for the equestrian statue. In consequence of this he had abandoned house and business and spent over seven months at Court, and also executed his commission so much to His Majesty’s satisfaction that the effigy was forthwith despatched to Florence.” The king, whose treasury must just then have been at the lowest ebb, had in lieu of fee given him an “order” on the Sevillan Tribunal of Commerce for a merchantman to be chosen by himself from the Indian fleet, which was to trade with America on his account. But as no such ships had long been available, he had been kept waiting twelve long years, and now in his old age, encumbered by a large family and in needy circumstances, he was still petitioning in vain. He died soon after, and ten years later (1658) his widow at last succeeded in negoti- ating the order with a trader for a silver ingot worth a thousand crowns. The summons to Madrid was probably due to Velazquez, who had known the artist in Seville, and hearing from Pacheco of his poverty was no doubt glad of the opportunity to do him this service. In the year 1877 I had already conjectured that the portrait in the Madrid Museum bearing the name of Alonso Cano might really be that of Montanes. Doubts had already been expressed regarding the old title, which had been engraved with the head on the banknotes for one thousand pesetas. The aged Cano had quite a different appearance — long, haggard face, retreating forehead with high bosses above the eyes, languid yet still passionate look, delicate mouth, as figured in the only reliable crayon in the National Library, Madrid. 1 These traits agree well enough with Cano’s well-known restless, vehement, quarrelsome character, whereas ours is the head evidently of a very grave person. Moreover this portrait of an old man could have been painted at the earliest in 1656, when Cano had again returned from Granada to Madrid, in order to solicit the king’s favour in his litigation with the Cathedral Chapter. But this date does not harmonize with the bust larger than life which the sculptor is in the act of modelling. And although the outlines of this bust are merely suggested with a few rough touches, the characteristic lines of Philip IV.’s head with the hair as worn about his thirtieth year cannot be mistaken. Nor should we overlook the animated turn of the face, which in fact distinguishes Tacca’s equestrian figure from nearly all other effigies of this king. 1 The engraving in Stirling-Maxwell’s Annals (ii. 780) from the Spanish collection in the Louvre represents an old clergyman, while the head in the Hermitage (353) is altogether different. The Sculptor Martinez Montanes. 283 My conjecture, which had also occurred independently to P. Lefort, 1 became a certainty when I soon after saw Varela’s portrait of Montanes in the Seville Academy. For here, allowing for the changes due to a lapse of over twenty years, the unalterable substratum of the features is quite the same ; only the hard, even harsh forms have been softened by age. It is noteworthy that the right hand with the modelling style is drawn precisely as in our portrait ; but the left holds a statuette, or rather a sketch probably of a penitent St. Jerome. To Velazquez’ portrait gallery should therefore now be added the most famous master of estofado sculpture in Andalusia. Montanes, who had already in 1607 executed a Bambino for the sagran'o of the Seville Cathedral, and who called himself “old” in 1648, must have been approaching his sixtieth year when this likeness was taken. The painting has been referred to the last years of the master, probably to bring it into accord with Cano’s age. Its unfinished state also gives it a seeming resem- blance to the so-called third manner. The lightly applied brown ground of the narrow shadows has been left untouched, while the texture of the canvas may also be detected through the yellowish and reddish flesh tones. Nevertheless these luminous parts have such a sunny brightness, and the modelling is so unsurpassable, that the artist may be said to have suspended his work because he found he had already gained his object. The aged sculptor is represented modelling with his boldly sketched hand the bust, which is itself suggested with a minimum of lines on the priming. Thus on this canvas everything is being developed, and in every stage of development, for there are parts, such as the black costume, which are perfectly finished. That right hand is assuredly after Nature, rapidly executed with a brush saturated with colour. Four fingers hold the style, the little finger being left free and distinguished by a rich serpentine streak of light. 1 Gazette des Bcauv-arts , 1882, ii., 409. 284 V F.LAZQUEZ. Although so simply treated few hands are more expressive than this ; it quivers with life. The searching eye learns its forms from Nature, chronicles them as it were ; we feel that this modelling activity of the brain will be presently set free by the impulse of this modelling hand. The left rests on the crown of the bust. The head belongs to a type frequently met with in Castile ; on one of the first da} ? s of my arrival in Madrid I myself saw its double in the Variedades Theatre. Here we have a broad, finely arched forehead; thick, bushy, close-set eyebrows, overshadowing small eyes standing somewhat apart ; prominent cheekbones ; bridge of the nose broad and slightly depressed. The grey hair (mustachio and imperial almost white) is already very thin, especially over the brow. In these features we read the labour of a long life, the fruits of which are still so completely preserved in those numerous works in Seville and the provinces, works which for nearly three hundred years have realized for the people of South Spain the ideal of their national saints. The man impresses you with a sense of confidence, and even of dignity. The head agrees altogether with the impression derived from his statues ; we see that he was neither an observing nor a very fanciful artist, but an idealist endowed with noble taste, full of respect for tradition, a man of steady industry and genuine Spanish sentiment. The artist wears a loose black coat with leather girdle and a black silk cloak, scarcely a suitable working dress unless the sitter were some very distinguished person. Since the time of Titian and other Venetians, sculptors, in this differing from the painters, were fond of being depicted at work, holding a statuette and surrounded by plastic objects. Spain also had a good exemplar of this sort in the portrait of Pompeo Leoni with the marble bust of Philip II. and the chisel by El Greco. This work was in Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell’s country seat at Keir in 1879. In most cases one is puzzled to know what the sculptor is doing; but in the portrait of Velazquez we see it at once. Here the artist is represented in his most characteristic occupation, absorbed in his model. Apart from the attitude of the arms, the pose differs little from that of other portraits, where the subject is unoccupied. Cardinal Borja , 1 or Borgia. In 1636 a Spanish cardinal returned to Madrid after a twenty-two years’ residence in Rome. Like all his fellow-countrymen he had very 1 Borja is the original Spanish form of the more familiar Italian Borgia . — Trans. Cardinal Borgia. 289 reluctantly quitted the Holy City and his prospects there. The reception, however, which he received at Court was doubtless calculated to sweeten the bitterness of — shall we say his exile ? Gaspar Borgia y Velasco, son of Don Francisco Duke of Gandia, was born at Villalpando in Leon in 1582, and at the request of the king raised to the cardinalate by Urban VIII. in 1611. The Dukes of Gandia were descended from Don Juan, eldest son of Rodrigo Borgia, and the family had given to the Church two popes (though, to be sure, one of them was Alexander VI.) 1 and one saint, the third general of the Jesuits. This was the St. Francis Borgia, whose departure from the world has been such a favourite theme with Spanish painters. After the canonization, when his body was solemnly consigned in 1625 to the Casa Professa (Mother House) in Madrid, Khevenhiller tells us that the bier and banners were borne by forty-six members of fourteen princely houses, branches of the Borgia stock, and that in the evening a mask tournament was held, in which nearly all the company were either blood relations or connected by marriage with the descendants of the saint’s family. The ex-Minister, and now Cardinal, Lerma had borne the standard on which was embroidered the Borgia escutcheon, the ox, and over it the name of Jesus, with the legend: JJt portct nomen meum (“To show that God had already entrusted His Church to two members of this House ”). All will here recall the prophecy of St. Vincent Ferreri, Ter niugiet bos (“ Thrice the ox shaU bellow ’’), which according to some was fulfilled by this canonization (two popes pins a saint), while others still looked for a third successor of St. Peter from the House of Borgia. Cardinal Gaspar, at that time residing in Rome as “protector” of the Spanish crown, would appear to have adopted the latter interpretation. He was highly esteemed for his sound judgment, revered by the people, and from his princely munificence known as “ Father of the Poor.” But, although Giustiniani vaunted his “exquisite discernment, tact, and talent,” others thought less of his endowments, and Cardinal Zapata sneered at the restraint he vainly imposed upon himself with a view to the tiara. The trait most conspicuous in his public career was energy of will, stooping to rudeness, and at times even to pettiness, combined with undoubted personal courage in defending the interests of the State. These seemed to be the only qualities still left to Spanish statesmen at a time when the wisdom, the military genius, the enterprise and the organizing faculty of former days had fallen into abeyance. 1 The other was the feeble Calixtus III. (Alphonso Borgia) who reigned from 1453 to 1458. — Translator. 286 Velazquez. In the history of this period Borgia’s name is first heard in the year 1620. when he was entrusted with the delicate mission of removing Osuna from the government of Naples. The difficulty of the undertaking lay in the circum- stance that the cardinal had neither received full powers, nor had the duke been recalled by the Crown. As viceroy of the “ Two Sicilies ” Osuna had inspired the highest respect for the Spanish fleet throughout the Mediterranean, reviving the memories of Lepanto. But he had earned universal hatred by oppressive imposts, alienated the nobles by his high-handed bearing, and so compromised himself by his scandalous life that the Ccurt w'as no longer able to lend him any countenance in the face of the open hostility of Venice and the com- plaints daily arriving from Naples. Hence the necessity of removing him, but, as Borgia understood, with as much consideration as possible for his personal feelings. In the consciousness of his great name and services Osuna was con- vinced that by determined action he could hold his ground against the irresolution of the Madrid Cabinet. He was credited with the foolhardy project of setting up an indepen- dent principality in Naples. Any- how by underhand dealings he had so acted on the Neapolitan populace that in the spring of 1620 they rushed through the Toledo thorough- fare shouting, "We’ll have no regent but Osuna ! ” The nobles, fearing plunder and arson, fortified their palaces and armed their retainers. Borgia’s letter announcing his approach he tore up, exclaiming, “ I am Don Pedro Giron, and will let all know what I can do in Spain adding that he hoped to pack Borgia off in a ship to his diocese of Seville. But Borgia, remembering how Mendoza had disposed of Cardinal Granvella, resolved to outwit him, surprising and crushing him by the accomplished fact of his own assumption of the supreme power. Coming to an understanding with the Governor of Castel Nuovo, in Procida, he repaired secretly to Nisida, and thence to the Castello ; and when everything was ready an hour Cardinal Borgia. 287 before sunrise the guns of the forts and the church bells announced the arrival of the new viceroy. Osuna starting from his slumbers hastened to the Castello to hear that Borgia was already in possession. That was a sudden fall to find himself in a moment forsaken by all. When Borgia reported to Madrid the bloodless solution of this dangerous crisis he ventured to read Philip III. a severe lesson, laying the blame on his shoulders, and admonishing him in future to look better to the public admini- stration, else similar and worse complications were sure to arise. This presumption, as well as his ignominious treatment of the otherwise renowned viceroy Osuna, induced the Duke of Uceda forthwith to remove Borgia himself, his government lasting only six months. His name became still more widely known in connection -with the famous protest (1632) against the Anti-Spanish and anti-imperial policy of Urban VIII., a protest in which the conflict between this patriotic pope and Ferdinand II. found its dramatic turning-point. When Urban refused to grant the subsidies, or to exhort the Catholic powers to join in the struggle for religion, as was pretended by the Imperialists but by him denied ; that protest was drawn up at a gathering of the cardinals of the Spanish party, at which the imperial ambassador was also present. The document which had to be read in the Consistorio by Borgia, as protector of the Spanish Crown and head of the party, concluded with the words that he protested on the part of his Majesty, with all dutiful submission and reverence, that for whatever harm might accrue to the Catholic religion through the pope’s wavering policy the blame must fall, not on a most pious and obedient king, but on his Holiness himself. It was at the reading of this declaration on March 8, 1632, that at the word “ cundatur" Urban interrupted Borgia, calling on him to stop ( tace ) and even to withdraw, while the pope’s nephews threatened to take the law into their own hands. Henceforth Urban fostered a feeling of deadly rancour against Borgia, whom he reproached with base ingratitude, but whom the position of royal envoy protected from his vengeance. The nunzio in Madrid vainly urged his recall, and was flatly told that the Kings of Spain had never sacrificed to Rome a servant who had incurred her hatred through his zeal for the interests of the State. 1 Thus Borgia continued three years longer to endure with Spanish phlegm the wrath of his Holiness, never failing to meet his 1 Once when the papal notary wanted to publish an apostolic rescript, which trespassed too closely on the royal privileges, Quiroga, Vicar of Alcala, snatched the document from his hands and tore it up. When summoned by the pope to answer for his conduct in Rome, he was protected by Philip II., and ultimately rewarded by promotion to the primacy of Spain. — D e Pisa : Description de Toledo (Toledo : 1619) i., 267. 288 Velazquez. bitter taunts with a dignified retort, and “ cutting ” his nephews in the Corso. For Urban nothing remained but to cut the knot by the bull Sancta Synodus, which required all bishops, under the severest canonical penalties, to reside in their dioceses. Borgia, who was already Cardinal-Bishop of Albano, in vain expressed his willingness to resign the see of Seville, for just then (1635) Philip IV., needing his services, recalled him to Madrid. Here he was laden with honours. But then the wealthy cardinal’s name stood at the head of the list of contributors towards the heavy expenses of the war, and during the king’s absence in Aragon he formed with the grandees, a Junta del Rey (regency) under the presidency of the queen. Here also he remained true to his character, and advised sanguinary measures to stamp out the Catalonian revolt. But while winning the hearts of the Court ladies by a lavish distribution of sweetmeats, fancy vases, and other gallantries, he found himself unable to cope with the haughty canons of Seville. He got to loggerheads with the Chapter over the appointments to the prebends and on the weighty question of titles, they insisting on vuestra senoria, while he would condescend to nothing beyond a poor vuestra merced. Thereupon these reverend gentlemen complained to the king that he was arrogant and inexperienced, a mere tool in the hands of his father-confessor, an ignorant friar, and consequently incompetent to administer his diocese. They even went farther, and on the occasion of a diocesan synod the rural parish priests one night stormed his palace and smashed his furniture, while he thought it well to sleep through the uproar. At last in the new year, 1643, Philip raised him to the highest ecclesiastical dignity in the kingdom, which had already been given by Philip II. also in recognition of resistance shown to the Roman Curia in the interests of the State. The new primate accompanied his thanks with a substantial gift of fifty thousand crowns in hard cash, which “came in very opportunely.” As the “ chair ” of St. Ildefonso, Toledo, ranks in Spanish opinion next after that of St. Peter, Borgia may have accepted it as some compensation for his shattered hopes. But he enjoyed it only three years (ob. December 28, 1645), though he had still the satisfaction to survive the fall of the Barberini. “ II Signor Condestabile,” wrote Ameyden, “ reached Genoa and Cardinal Borgia entered Paradise, the better pleased that he had first seen the downfall of the Barberini” {Diary: September 15, 1646). The vanity of earthly greatness seems towards the end to have over- Cardinal Borgia. 289 come him. In his last will he left twelve thousand ducats for an altar with chaplaincy before the image of Our Lady of the Star in the cathedral, under which he wished to be buried. The tomb bears no inscription, and is indicated only by a glittering gold cross. The Chapter of St. Ildefonso possessed a portrait, which he probably presented on his induction, and which was intended to take its place in the long line of Toledan prelates kept in the Winter Hall of the Cathedral. But it was now decided to hang this above the unornamented tomb, and have another made for the portrait gallery. Here the new painting remained till the outbreak of the war of independence in 1808, when it was removed for greater safety to an ante-chamber in the underground office of works ( oficina de la obra y fdbrica). Owing to this circumstance the portrait, which was unknown to the early writers, has remained unnoticed by all biographers. A replica agreeing in all details was formerly in the Borgia Palace at Gandia. This cradle of the extinct family still survives, and by a strange fatality has passed with the title to the Dukes of Osuna, descendants of the cardinal’s deadly enemy ; but the stately building, dating from the fifteenth century, has by them been left in a sad state of neglect. The portrait was here seen by Palomino, and appears later to have been acquired by Cean Bermudez, passing from him to Salamanca and finally (1867) for twenty-seven thousand one hundred francs to the Stadel Institute, Frankfort. A third exemplar in black dress, a hasty one, apparently a studio painting, is owned by Mr. Walter Ralph Bankes, of Kingston Lacy, Dorset, and is said to have been given to one of his ancestors by a Duchess of Gandia. The Frankfort work excites more confidence than the Toledan, in which the tone of the face is fresher and more ruddy without the yellowish lights, while the shadows are grey and but slightly softened down. The red of the cap also is richer. Both the thick priming, whence incipient exfoliation, and the use of glazing are unusual. This portrait is the only known specimen of the Spanish hierarchy left us by Velazquez. For the date we are left the choice of any time between 1636 and 1645, the cardinal having returned to Spain in his fifty-fourth year. From its appearance one would feel inclined to refer it to the end, but from its style rather to the beginning, of this decade. It is the lean head of an elderly man with delicate ossatura, thin grey hair on the temples, very thin grey imperial leaving contour and shadows of the chin to show through, wide mouth, tip of the nose reaching far down. In the firm, penetrating glance 19 2 go V ELAZQUEZ. of the eyes there is certainly no trace of advanced years. Perhaps the cardinal looks older than he was in consequence of the long years of trouble and excitement in the Quirinal. The head well becomes a scion of this ancient house, in whose veins flowed the blood of a pope and of the first nobles of the land — a type of the pride and harshness especially of the Spanish Church dignitaries, softened- by no genial or less stern qualities, a type that almost inspires terror. This still, cold, piercing glance must have had a crushing effect on the accused, stifling all justifying words in their throat. Compared also with the heads of other cardinals, it gives the impression that this was scarcely a diplomatist, a courtier, or a Maecenas ; it has nothing of the refinement or elegance of the typical Italian cardinal, but it suggests passion, and those familiar with the characteristic groups of the Sacred College will recognize the type of the zealot. We are at once arrested by the high, unfurrowed expanse of the broad, spale forehead, with its steep curvature in striking contrast with the thin, contracted and somewhat pendent nose and the sunken lower part of the face. ^The cold glance is intensified by the high red and narrow cap with its sharp cut. The toothless mouth and firmly closed lips express determination, and we feel that the utterances of such a mouth are tone- less, deliberate, and incisive. As at the Junta in 1640, on the occasion of the Catalonian rising, we hear him say : “ As a conflagration can be quenched only ,by much water, the fire of disloyalty and revolt can be quelled only by rivers of blood.” In its general treatment the portrait is a fine example of the middle style. Here relief is still the chief consideration, and few other heads have been so carefully treated in this respect. The pale face in a cold, white daylight stands out with wonderful vividness from the uniform dark brown, black-looking ground. The relief has been mainly effected by a few patches of the darkbrown shadows from the prominent bony profile — superciliary arches, cheekbones, nasal extremity — by all of which the light is heightened more than it is limited. The half-tones of temples and cheeks have a slight touch of green ; a light flush plays about cheeks, eyes, and tip of the nose, while a yellowish tinge pervades the forehead, here the largest luminous space. The character of the tender skin peculiar to age is well hit off in these diverse tones, and everything has been accomplished with much economy of pigment, which everywhere, and especially in the half-tones, allows us to detect the coarse texture of the canvas. The red of the short cloak has been reduced to the utmost, a dull purple tone showing Duke of Modena. 291 only in the folds, and becoming almost quite pale in the applied lights. The St. Charles Borromeo in Stafford House attributed to Velaz- quez, is a spirited little Italian work, apparently produced at Rome. Francis d ’ Estc , Duke of Modena . Six months after the visit of the Duchess of Chevreuse, Francis d’Este, the young Duke of Modena and Reggio made his appearance, and he also was granted the favour of a sitting to our artist. As this well- preserved portrait is one of those bearing a correct date, a few words may be acceptable on its personal associations. Francis II. (born 1610, ob. 1658) was the son of that Francis who, in 1629, exchanged the crown for the cowl. Spain and France both sued for his alliance, and his states lay so near the Spanish domain that it had long been a principle of the Italian Council on no account to allow his troops to be employed in other interests. With this object a pension of fifteen thousand ducats was assigned to the house of Este— paid, however, with Spanish punctuality ! In the war of the Mantuan succession the young duke had done good service in the cause of Spain, and in order to cement the alliance Olivares urged him to visit Madrid, the Modenese envoy, Count Fulvio Testi, cordially co-operating. “Great things are pending,” mysteriously remarked the Minister ; “ the duke is the only princely person to be employed. He is young and ambitious, and the world is out of joint.” They wanted to get a near view of him, to take the measure of his capacity and intelli- gence. “ Nothing venture, nothing have,” wrote Testi to the duke, while Giustiniani was announcing his speedy arrival, “ to solemnize the sacrifice of his thraldom ” to Spain, and this was the common feeling of the Italians. He himself hoped to get rid of the Spanish garrison in Correggio, and secure the emperor’s support in his dispute with the Roman Curia about Ferrara. At last the duke, who was to be won over by a high post in the fleet, landed at Barcelona on August 26, 1638. After a delay of eleven days at Alcala pending a settlement of the nice point of etiquette whether he was to be addressed as Highness, to which he laid claim, or only as Serenity at which the grandees drew the line, he set out for the capital, and soon after entered Buen Retiro escorted by Olivares and a brilliant cortege. The king gave him a very cordial reception, and he generally produced a favourable impression, the people declaring he was a Spaniard because of his black hair. “ He is really of fair aspect,” wrote the Tuscan 292 Velazquez. envoy, " tall, of jovial mien, friendly, animated, frank.” The aged Duchess Olivares " worshipped him.” Now followed the usual round of festivities, and it was remarked that, as a special favour Philip invited him to the grand hunting-parties at DUKE OF MODENA. Balsain, an honour shown neither to the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Parma nor the Elector Neuburg. Through his prowess in the chase, the young prince earned the king’s esteem, and quite conquered his heart by his unfeigned admiration of Philip’s pet creation, the Torre de la Parada. Duke of Modena. 293 Philip himself showed him over the Escorial, and on the feast of St. Michael took him for a drive through the capital, seizing this occasion to ask him to stand godfather to the Infanta Maria Theresa, future Queen of France, who was just then to be christened by Cardinal Borgia in the Palace Chapel. Then he received the chief command of the Cantabrian and Atlantic fleet, “ a fantastic title ” accompanied however with a stipend of fourteen thousand ducats. Lastly a chapter was held of the Order of the Golden Fleece, when the highest decoration at the disposal of the Court was conferred on the duke jointly with the crown prince. Had they but foreseen that eighteen years later he would be strutting about Paris in this “ golden pelt ! ” Amongst the costly presents given and taken, special mention is made of the diamond ornament presented to the duke, which took the form of an imperial eagle, consisting of thirty-seven large stones and valued at eighteen thousand ducats. On the reverse of the eagle was a miniature of the king inserted by Velazquez — “ so like and beautiful,” wrote Testi at the time, “that it is certainly a thing of wonder.” What has become of this ornament which Testi ascertained from trustworthy sources had cost the king altogether thirty-three thousand ducats ? “The duke,” Palomino tells us ( Museo iii., 331), “highly honoured Diego Velazquez and praised his rare gifts ; and when Diego painted him, much to his satisfaction, he generously rewarded him especially with a rich gold chain, which Velazquez generally wore, as was customary, on feast days in the palace.” At the time when the Marchese Campori wrote his book about the Este artists, this portrait was unknown, and in Paul Lefort’s Life of Velazquez (1888) it is said to have disappeared. Nevertheless since 1843 the Modenese Gallery contained an undoubted original by Velazquez representing the young duke. In that year it had been purchased as a Van Dyck for three thousand lire by the historical painter and curator Adeodato Malatesta from Count Paolo Cassoli Lorenzotti. It is conjectured that a predecessor, the secretary of Duke Rocco Lorenzotti, had bought it from him. The portrait really gives the effect of a likeness hastily taken during the short intervals between the continual round of festivities. Many would call it a sketch ; but this sketch, especially in the colouring, is made from the final impressions. The head is disposed in the usual way facing right with the glance directed towards the observer, and across the armour is thrown the red scarf. So complete!)' had the duke comformed to the taste of the nation, 294 V ELAZQUEZ. with whom he was a guest, that but for the data his portrait would be taken for that of a Spaniard. But, as it is, this proud, somewhat scornful air, the rich, loose, highly frizzled black hair falling in waves over the right side of the forehead, the still thin upturned mustachio, the goli/la, the Golden Fleece, all proclaim the pliant Italian, the born actor. The tip of the nose projects pertly forward, while the chin recedes behind the full underlip. The head has a certain youthful, unaffected air, with an expression which according to the then standard seems scarcely courtly. It shows a genial carelessness, a studied simplicity very different from later portraits painted in the French taste, where he looks colder, paler, more refined. The face, originally painted almost without shadows, is now much darkened by varnish. This reminiscence of his Spanish velleities may have later been looked upon askance, which would account for its disappearance from the ducal palace. But besides this work intended for the duke himself, another on horseback was taken in hand for the king, who wanted an equestrian portrait, probably in memory of their common hunting parties. The duke had left him a team of eight superb black Neapolitan horses, as mentioned in a letter of November 21, 1638, from which we also gather that he wanted a copy of the eques- trian portrait, “ but by the hand of the painter who is doing the original.” It is not to be supposed that such a work would be entrusted by the king to any but Velazquez, and we find that in point of fact he was engaged in the spring of 1639 on a portrait of the duke. “Velasco,” writes Testi, on March 12 of that year, “is doing the portrait of your Highness, which will be admirable. But he has the failing of other excellent artists, that he never finishes right off and never tells you the truth. I have given him one hundred and fifty pieces of eight on account, and the price has been arranged by the Marchese Virgilio Malvezzi at one hundred doubloons. He is dear, but does well, and certainly his portraits I regard as not inferior to those of any other of the most famous old or modern painters. I will keep him up to it.” But the duke, having soon after fallen away from his allegiance to Spain, this work was apparently allowed to drop out of sight. In 1647 he openly declared for France, and the lifesize equestrian portrait in the Sassuolo Palace is in French costume, as is also that given in Litta’s work, which was in the possession of Count Valentini, of Modena. Of our master’s later relations with the Modenese Court, mention will be made when speaking of his second Italian journey. Admiral Pulido. 295 Admiral Adrian Pulido. But where are the figures of those Spaniards, whose courage and cruelty, haughtiness and genius for maladministration made them the terror of the nations ? On the whole the works of Velazquez smell less of powder than might be expected from the period in which he flourished. The most brilliant types of Spanish captains and governors, the Leganes, Ferias, Moncadas, Bazans, Mirabels, Colomas, must be sought in the iconography of Van Dyck. Of the numerous figures brought by the boisterous times for a moment to the surface, but few found their way to the Court painter’s studio^ and although one of these was a grandee they were mainly nobodies. Unquestionably the most interesting work of this class is the portrait of Admiral Pulido, one of the extremely rare pieces that Velazquez has signed and dated. This fact enables one to form some conjecture as to the circum- stances of its origin. The year 1638 had been so prolific in events, that the ensuing twelve months were entirely absorbed in their commemoration, and amongst the plays produced at Buen Retiro on this occasion one was entitled “ The Victory of Fuentarabia.” Richelieu’s attempt to shift the operations to Spanish territory by seizing a frontier stronghold — and, of all places, in the unconquered land of the Basques — had thrown Court and public into a perfect ferment. The blow, said the Jesuit Joseph Moret, acted like a sudden thunderclap on a man sound asleep. Since the time of Charles V. no hostile force- of any strength had invaded Spanish soil; hence “throughout the whole land nothing was now seen or heard but warlike notes, the raising of recruits, the formation of companies and squadrons, marching from province to province, but all directed on the province of Guipuzcoa. The city of Madrid was transformed to a great enlisting ground and place d’armes, through which daily passed brilliant, well-equipped troops, levied by towns and nobles.” The result of the siege of Fontarabia, conducted by land and sea by Conde and Archbishop Sourdis, of Bordeaux, seemed scarcely doubtful. The place had been taken by surprise, and was so little prepared for a siege that the Admiral of Castile had to throw in a few hundred men to put the garrison on a footing of defence. The Spaniards had also suffered some heavy losses, such as the burning of their fleet, the death of the commander Miguel Perez, and the destruction of a bastion, which rendered an assault possible at two different points. But they were allowed time to entrench themselves in the breaches, while the bickerings between Conde and the archbishop exposed the French camp to an attack, which ended in a general stampede, Conde saving himself by wading to a boat. 296 Velazquez. This brilliant exploit, which took place on September 7, 1638, caused boundless jubilation in Madrid, and was celebrated by great rejoicings, which coincided with the visit of the Duke of Modena. A certain captain, Don Adrian Pulido, had especially distinguished himself on several critical occasions during the course of the siege. He was a Madrileno, and we can well picture to ourselves how during the festivities all eyes were turned on him as the mirror of Castilian heroism. He had been wounded in the sortie of August 8, when Perez fell ; when the Queen’s Bastion was blown up on September 1, he stood in the breach for six hours; and was again wounded in the head during the last sanguinary assault of September 6. If this Don Adrian be identical with the person of the same name who afterwards became admiral, it would be difficult to imagine a better opportunity than the present for his promotion to such a position. The king decorated him with the Cross of Santiago, and our Court painter doubtless painted few others with such pleasure as he did this Don Adrian. Such would therefore appear to be the origin of that portrait, of which Palomino gives us a detailed account. “ In the year 1639 he made the picture of Don Adrian Pulido Pareja, a native of Madrid, Knight of the Order of Santiago, Admiral of the Fleet of New Spain, who about that time was here transacting various official matters with His Majesty. This portrait is life size, and is amongst the most famous painted by Velazquez, on which account he put his name to it, which he otherwise seldom did : Didacus Velazquez fecit; Philip. IV., a cubiculo, eiusque Pictor, anno 1639. This excellent picture belongs at present to the Duke of Arcos.” 1 Such an inscription, the authenticity of which, however, might need testing, is found on the portrait in Longford Castle, Wilts, which is said to have been acquired by a former Earl of Radnor some time befere the year 1828. The legend, which stands rather high up on the left side, runs thus:-- Did. Velasq z - Philip. IV., a cubiculo ciusq' pictor 1639. ADRIAN PULIDO PAREJA. where the name, in Roman capitals, has been added by a later hand. Palomino tells us that " the king one day, paying his customary visit to the painter, mistook the picture for the admiral himself, and rebuked him for 1 Musco pictorico, iii. 331. With this may be compared the signature of the lost Moriscos : Didacus Velazquez Hispalensis. Philip. IV. Regis Hispan. Pictor ipsiusque iusu fecit , anno 1627 ; ibid. p. 327. Admiral Pulido. 29 7 tarrying in Madrid when he had been ordered away, Perceiving his mistake he addressed Velazquez with the words : “ I assure you I was deceived.” Is such a deception possible ? We know that Vasari tells a similar story of Titian’s Paul III., with his two nephews, which when placed on a terrace to dry in the sun deceived many, who did homage to his Holiness. Vasari speaks as if he had himself witnessed the occurrence (Lives, xiii., 35). The king’s words have rather a false ring, and the anecdote may perhaps have grown out of some smart saying, such as Verdcid, no pintura — common enough in those days. In point of fact, so far as vigour and life are concerned, the portrait takes a very high place even amongst Velazquez’ works. By means of his well-known processes he has here achieved a rare success. In accordance with earlier methods the light yellow-grey ground — darker above, and without any relation to the limits of wall and floor — has been specially prepared with reference to the black velvet costume. Don Adrian stands a little to the left, his glance directed towards the observer, legs again brought close together, feet almost at a right angle. The colour is applied more freely than usual, the otherwise rarely employed dazzling white patches on the deep lace collar, flowered satin sleeves, plumes, bows on the knees, accoutrements, helping the illusion. Nor is there anything of the courtier in the attitude, for he stands bolt upright like a soldier before his commanding officer. He is a broad- shouldered, robust person like Murillo’s figure of Andres de Andrade in the Northbrook collection. We see at once that he is not the man to hesitate about risking his own life or that of others in the deadly jaws of a breach. The browned face with gleams of white light belongs to a not uncommon Castilian type, of which this, however, is an exceptionally stout, sturdy, grim specimen. The thick black shady eyebrows, very bushy and nearly meeting above the nose, the perpendicular wrinkle right in the middle of the forehead, the uptwirled mustachio — the whole enframed in an abundant mass of black hair parted on one side and profusely crowning the defiant head, bespeaks the dauntless soldier as he stood on the ramparts of Fontarabia, as he will yet stand on the quarter-deck of the admiral’s ship in the hottest of the fight. For he is the man who may be trusted to stand to his guns to the last ; and who, if it comes to that, will coolly apply the match to the powder magazine. Both hands wear the yellow leather gloves, the right holding the admiral’s staff, the left a very broad-brimmed felt hat, the underside turned outwards. On his breast is the red, gold-hemmed scarf and the red- enamelled decoration of the Order of Santiago. According to Palomino Velazquez executed this work with brushes of 298 Velazquez. unusual length, in order to paint with greater force and effect, standing at a distance. It appears in fact to have been very broadly treated with more fiery vigour than delicacy. Still Waagen detects “ careful execution,” while Thore is reminded of Titian. Yet this work bears the same date as the Crucifixion. They are the opposite poles of his Art — a notable instance of how the genuine artist can lend himself to any subject, and keep his hand at all times free from routine. A corresponding figure of the admiral had already passed in 1 8 1 8 into the possession of the Duke of Bedford, by whom it was placed in his country seat, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire. Only here instead of the small ellip- tical medallion he wears a large red Cross of Santiago sewed to his doublet. I can detect no foreign hand in this work, which may well be a contem- porary replica by the master. But this would apply to the figure alone, for the whole environment, which originally was probably left as empty as in the first exemplar, was filled in at least twenty-two years later at the request of the then owner. Here the admiral stands before a wall, from which a red curtain hangs on the left down to the level of his shoulders. The brown floor is scored in broad polygonal cracks, and to the right the view opens on the sea with a naval engagement. The sky, blue on the horizon, is overcast higher up with heavy clouds. All this betrays the hand of an inferior artist, who has also introduced the shield with the name 1 on the left below, the place it often occupied on portraits of the period, as, for instance, the Spanish Capuchin in the Prado. This was probably done on the occasion of its removal to some large portrait gallery. A collection of famous captains was possessed by the Marquis of Leganes, whose title was inherited by the Altamiras, at the sale of whose effects in 1833 a portrait of Pulido was included. Is this the same that is mentioned with that of his wife in the sale of the Aston Hall paintings in 1862 ? The Count of Benavente. The only portrait of a soldier possessed by the Madrid Museum is that of Don Antonio Alonso Pimentel, ninth Count of Benavente (i - 9 0‘88 m.). He was the son of the famous Neapolitan viceroy, Don Juan Alonso, who died in 1621. Khevenhiller calls him “a distin- guished Christian subject, who rendered many services to the king, and 1 “ ADRIAN / PULIDO P. 4 REJA / Capitan general / de la Armada y / Flota de nueva Espaha j Fallecio en la Ciudad de la Nueva Vera Cruz / 1660.” Size of the first, 81 x 44 inches ; of the second, 77 J x 42-t ( Curtis and Scharf). The Count of Benavente. 299 left fourteen children, fourteen grandchildren, and three great-grand- children, all living.” The old renown of the name of Pimentel was revived by this posterity ; no other family supplied the king with so many brave officers, or so freely shed their blood in his cause. In Calderon’s Siege of Breda Vicente, brother of our Don Antonio, enters with one thousand horse from Lombardy ; Don Garcia, Don Alonso, and Don Diego, three other brothers, had all died in the king’s service; and now in the Catalonian War (1542) the Count of Luna, son of Don Antonio, had joined the king’s forces with a company of eight hundred men raised on his father’s estates. Don Antonio himself, however, has left no brilliant record behind him, and despite his illustrious name, may be included amongst the “Obscuri- ties.” He passed most of his days in the family seat at Valladolid, where he gave grand entertainments in the house of the Jesuits. After the success- ful Portuguese revolution the king appointed him governor of the frontier — a distinction, however, of which he was again deprived the following year (1642), much to his disgust. Don Antonio’s portrait shows his sound constitution which, from the above family records, the Pimentel stock must evidently have enjoyed. He is a man whose well-knit frame and youthful carriage belie his fifty years and grey hairs. From a high, broad, finely-arched forehead and black bushy eyebrows springs a short, broad-rooted nose of the duckbill type, while a white mustachio covers an apparently long upper lip. This healthy face is solidly painted in a perfectly clear, soft, warm tone, with greenish-grey half-tones. The effect of the burnished steel armour damascened in gold is produced with broad sweeping strokes of the brush. His right hand rests on the helmet which with the baton stands on the crimson table-cloth, reflecting the red scarf. Turquoise may be distinguished in the chain round his neck. The luminous head rests against a heavy dark red velvet curtain. Sky and land to the right are a waste, greenish-blue surface. Like several others of the period this portrait also has a Venetian cast, and later passed even for a Titian. It bore this name when it was in the possession of Isabella Farnese, adorning the royal ante-chamber in St. Ildefonso. Portraits of Unknown Persons. The Munich Pinakothek would appear at present to possess but one apparently genuine portrait by the master. This is the young, still beardless cavalier, with his left hand on his sword, and right arm 300 Velazquez. planted against his side. 1 It is a noble specimen of the race — long head with short, square almost vertical forehead, glowing brown eyes, aquiline nose — which the obliquely projected shadow seems still to prolong; rather prominent under-lip. Although the brush traces the contours only sketchily, the artist’s intention is unmistakable. It is perhaps the portrait of a friend, not carried out beyond what was just needed to realize the effect. The earthy-brown ground serves without further addition for the empty back- ground, which below is so carelessly covered with grey that open spaces have remained here and there on the contours ; the same ground serves also for the leather gloves, for one end of the golilla and for the shaded side of the face. Nevertheless this unfinished production is readily distinguished by the clear, true carnations in the luminous parts from similar hastily executed works of the period, as well as of the present time, painted as if with tobacco-juice. Its condition affords little means of determining the date. Possibly it belongs to the period before his first visit to Rome. Besides the Quevedo and the Pope, Apsley House possesses a third bust (No. 159), which was formerly taken for a portrait of Velazquez by himself, although the form of the head is quite different. The charm of this pale, aristocratic, somewhat lean though youthful face lies in the unity and rapidity of the first cast and the subsequent spirited treatment of light and shade. The head stands very fully out from the dark brown ground, which is somewhat lightened on the averted and shaded side of the figure. Few portraits have been modelled with such broad, scarcely toned light and shade surfaces. Thus, for instance, the line of the bridge of the nose on the quite uniformly coloured cheek is indicated by no adventitious aids, yet all the forms are clear. Palomino mentions several portraits of courtiers, for whose possible identification, however, no trustworthy data are now available. Amongst them were those of Don Nicolas de Cardona Lusigniano, and Pereyra, Knight of the Order of Christ — the latter “very celebrated,’’ and “painted with unusual mastery and skill.” He also speaks of portraits of Don Fernando de Fonseca Ruiz de Contreras, Marques de la Lapilla, Knight of Santiago, and of the queen’s confessor, Fray Simon Roxas, painted at his death in 1624. In the Dresden Gallery there is the protrait of such a Knight of Santiago (No. 698 ; size x o '$6 m.), an elderly gentleman of aris- No. 1293; size 0-89 x o-68 m; from the Dusseldorf Gallery. The Marquis of Castel Rodrigo. 301 tocratic appearance. The gold breast-chain perhaps bore the little shield, the red cross of the Order being indicated with a few broad touches on the cloak. The hair, already turned grey, painted in a strong light, speaks of past years of trouble; but his present full-bodied appear- ance seems to indicate that he has now exchanged the hardships of the field for a comfortable seat in some royal council chamber. The bust is interesting, as in its unfinished state it shows the painter in the middle of his work. The head is again sketched on a clear ground in light brown, and then uniformly treated with a medium flesh tone, the skull itself being apparently included. Then the elaboration was begun, when the work must have been interrupted for a somewhat lengthy interval. The hair, and even both sides of the mustachio, are in strikingly different colours, which would seem to point at two sittings, between which the original had turned grey. When retouched a fresh clear tone was applied to the face, where the spared locks, eyes and whiskers may clearly be seen. Possibly it may be due to chance that under this process the eyes, especially the lustreless right eye, have acquired an inflamed sickly look. Perhaps the modelling with grey half- tones was to have been worked into that clear carnation, which being omitted, forehead, cheeks, temples, neck formed a somewhat empt}', feeble surface. They might possibly raise a doubt as to the authenticity of the work, but only if it had to be regarded as a finished production of our master. The Marquis of Castel Rodrigo. Room may here be found for a problematical portrait, which has hitherto remained unidentified. This is the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo in the palace of Prince Pio of Savoy at Milan, where it traditionally passes for an original by Velazquez. The signature Velazquez f l on the arm of the chair may certainly be more than doubtful ; but the figure of the ancient Portuguese nobleman and the painting of the face would scarcely seem to need such an attestation. At least on my first visit to the palace in October 1880 I at once singled it out from the ancestral portraits, as bearing the cachet of our master ; Giovanni Morelli, the eminent connoisseur, also regards it as genuine. The three-quarter length figure, neither tall nor of powerful frame, is turned to the left, but with a searching glance on the observer, in black silk doublet and cloak by a chair also upholstered in black. The right hand holding a letter rests on the arm ; the left witn extended index finger lies on the hilt of his sword. About the nape there is 302 Velazquez. a trace of the droop of old age, and the scalp shows clearly through the thin white hair. The complexion is very pale, the eyebrows dark, and mustachios imperial white. Delicacy and clearness of modelling, combined with vivid characteriza- tion and the air of authority, could scarcely be expressed with simpler means, or so much physical and mental reality imparted to any human figure with so little colour and shade. The aged statesman, his venerable head resting on a white ruff, stands in unshaded light on a perfectly clear empty ground, with only a slightly shaded triangular space in the lower left corner. The glance, through which the man’s person- ality works with the wonted magical effect, as if in a focus, and which is accen- tuated only by small dark points, tells of a long life passed in affairs of State, a life accustomed to com- mand and to closely observe mankind. No other known portrait by Velazquez equals this in its clear tones; but it would be in accordance with his practice to at- tune the whole with refer- ence to the white of the grey hair. So full of expression is it that one feels irresistibly inclined to infer the nature of the man from this feature. I had myself the satisfaction, after con- structing his character on this foundation, to find it later substantially confirmed in an extract from the report of the Venetian envoy, Girolamo Giustiniani, for the year 1649. At the same time it must at once be added that the hand of Velazquez is not everywhere apparent in this picture. The ground, the dress, even the hands, too vigorous, plump, and smooth for such an old man, must have been either repainted or added by another artist. The Marquis of Castel Rodrigo. 303 According to the escutcheon in the upper right corner the work must at an early date have already passed for a portrait of Don Manuel de Moura, second Marquis of Castel Rodrigo ; for these are the arms of the De Moura family, united with those of Corte Real, the name of Don Manuel’s mother. He is also indicated by the shield of the Order of Christ, conferred on him by Philip IV., when he resigned that of Alcantara in favour of Olivares. The chronologies both of the artist and statesman might also render it possible to assign a probable period to the portrait within somewhat narrow limits. From 1631 to 1648 Don Manuel was entrusted with foreign missions, and during these seventeen years never came in contact with the painter till the beginning of 1648, when he returned to Madrid. The portrait represents him too aged to have been painted before 1631 ; and as Velazquez set out for Italy in December 1648, returning in the summer of 1651, the work must have been executed either in 1648, or during the second half of 1651, Don Manuel having died on January 28, 1652. The count had been received at Court with unusual marks of distinction ; over a quarter of a century previously one of the king’s first acts was to make him a grandee, and his removal from Spain had been the result of an intrigue set on foot by Olivares. To reconcile all points, it need but be assumed that Velazquez finished the head alone, sketching the rest and leaving the canvas to be prepared by others for reception in the State apartments. The painting has experienced many vicissitudes. The name, which stood in the left corner facing the arms, has been partly coated over, so that the words Castel Rodrigo alone, without the Christian name, can now be deciphered. Rubens also painted Don Manuel earlier in life, and had the portrait engraved by Pontius. In that work the head presents a somewhat different look from the long and pronounced aquiline nose, whereas in our portrait it is almost depressed. On the other hand other traits, such as the form of the long head and the eyes, correspond in both pictures. Noteworthy is the ruff, which since the year 1623 was no longer worn at the Court of Madrid. It might lead to the suggestion that the work was executed abroad, and this is but one of the many questions and doubts in which the portrait is still involved. 304 Velazquez. The Equestrian Portraits. In considering equestrian portraits the first place belongs unquestionably to the horse. Velazquez, who in his magnificent hunting-dogs showed himself an unsurpassed animal-painter, was also profoundly acquainted with the build and different movements of the horse, and was particularly happy in depicting the physiognomy of incomparably beautiful and life-breathing heads. Nowadays the direct impression produced by these superb creatures is somewhat impaired by their strange, heavy forms ; but what enthusiasm must they have awakened in the cavaliers of those days ! Diego must have already made a study of the horse in Seville, for he opened his career in Madrid with an equestrian painting. Doubtless he knew by heart the famous lines preserved by Pacheco, in which Pablo de Cespedes describes the Andalusian steed, adding that many artists, who might have made a name with much higher things, have established their present and future reputation exclusively on their treatment of the horse. Animals of the Velazquez type would probably in vain be sought for at present in Spain. They differ widely from the Arab, to which the Spanish breed is traced, although they really sprang from the Cordovan studs. Perhaps the Andalusian was crossed by the Flemish stock, to give the strength needed for the heavy armour and trappings. The Venetian envoys under Philip II. are full of the praises of these Andalusians, la razza del re. As is evident from a glance at the relative size of rider and charger they were small, but well-proportioned, and at that time were looked on as the perfection of equine beauty in Europe. William Caven- dish, Duke of Newcastle, says of those in his possession that they had been models for painters, and made to serve as mounts for kings . 1 But notwithstanding their apparent strength, they were of delicate constitution, and being easily heated needed much watchful care. The noble animals were highly prized for their swiftness, intelligence, and docility, as well as their courage in battle and bull-fights. They had a good memory, and were guided more by words than other means, and seemed to read the thoughts of their riders. Their bulkiness in our pictures is also partly explained by the fact that a horse, once ridden by the king, could never again be mounted by others ; hence the remark that “ the royal steeds, through idleness, burst of fat in the mews.” A Getieral System of Horsemanship (Antwerp : 1658 ; London : 1743). Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV. 305 The Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV. One of Olivares’ cherished projects in connection with Buen Retiro was the erection of a grand equestrian monument to Philip, “ the greatest king in the world,” as the poets proclaimed him. But such an under- taking being beyond the resources of Spanish Art at that time, it was proposed to entrust its execution to the Italian sculptor, Pietro Tacca, in Florence. It was to be a bronze statue after the model of that of Philip III., but in which the horse was to be represented as galloping, or curvetting, but in any case resting only on his hind legs. In the summer of 1635 the work of modelling was in full progress, and Tacca now requested a portrait of the king, as well as drawings of the costume and armour, in order to reproduce everything accurately. This portrait Velazquez had in hand in September 1635 ; but when it reached Florence, it became evident that the sculptor had missed the main point, and the model had to be done over again. At his request, towards the end of 1638 another lifesize portrait of the king was prepared by Velazquez to serve for modelling the head, and this was despatched in January 1640. This second work, painted in 1639, and according to Ponz 1 a half- length figure, has not yet been identified. On the other hand the first equestrian portrait, executed in 1635, to serve as a complete model for Tacca’s work, I now think may after all be the well-known small painting in the Pitti Palace, although I formerly (1883) questioned this view, misled by the commonly accepted but erroneous date of the large equestrian portrait in Madrid, of which it is an exact but reduced replica. I am now convinced that this cannot be the work executed by Velazquez nearly ten years later at Fraga during the campaign of 1644, as described by Palomino. In fact the Fraga work is still extant, while the large Madrid picture must have been painted about 1635, and consequently its small Florentine replica may well be the work that served as the model for Tacca’s statue. Palomino nowhere states that the Fraga work was an equestrian por- trait, as is generally but wrongly assumed. But he describes Philip’s costume in that portrait as “ a scarlet ( encarnado ) gold-embroidered doublet and hose, a smooth leather collar, a short commander’s baton of smooth wood, a white hat with red plume.” Now such an original by Velazquez actually exists in two exemplars — one in the Dulwich Gallery (No. 309), the other owned by Mrs. Lyne-Stephens, of Lyndford Hall, Norfolk. In this fine portrait the king is represented three-quarters length, and about Viage , vi. 109. 20 Velazquez. 306 forty years old, which agrees exactly with the date (1644) of the Fraga picture, as he was born in 1605. It is also the only known portrait of him in red or scarlet costume, and is otherwise distinguished by its gorgeous colouring, and the graceful ease of the attitude. Coming now to the large equestrian portrait in Madrid, we find that it agrees quite well with the date 1635, when the work was painted which was intended to serve as the model for Tacca’s statue. These features and this carriage are not those of a man forty years old. Stirling-Maxwell speaks of him as “ in the glow of youth and health," while EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IV. Bermudez and Viardot thought it might be the lost portrait taken in Philip’s twenty-third year. But the date may even be determined by positive evidence. The long series of extant portraits of this king enables us to follow the slight changes that took place during the space of over thirty years in this face, which was otherwise so uniform in its fundamental traits. These modifications lie partly in the growing corpulence, partly in the hair of the head and face, which of course vary in style, colour and quantity at different periods of life. In our equestrian portrait we still see the short hair and thin gently curved mustachios, which have not yet developed into the bigotc Icvantcido , which was popularly regarded almost as a special mark of a true national king. The picture also agrees as far as could be expected with Tacca’s statue, Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV. 307 the head of which was retouched in 1642 by that sculptor’s son in Madrid, when the monument was set up in Buen Retiro. The youthful, chivalrous bearing, the armour inlaid with gold, the fluttering scarf, the gold-embroi- dered hose and saddle, the long mane of the horse, all correspond, the hat alone differing. The action of the horse in the statue has been altered, for reasons that are now difficult to explain. The centre of gravity, which in the painting lies to the rear, has been shifted forward, and the animal itself is lighter and less bulky in the statue. From the foregoing it follows that the usual assumption of four equestrian portaits of Philip IV. by Velazquez falls to the ground. That of Fraga never existed, while that mentioned by Palomino (p. 334), on which he inscribed the word expinxit , was probably the first executed in 1623. In the work under notice the full side-view has probably been chosen in order to give the sculptor a clear model to work upon. The horse, a heavy sorrel or bay, diffused with a pale cast, and with sparkling eye, is properly poised, while his rider presents a charming embodiment o'f soldierly and kingly grace. The pose of the head, the upraised glance in the distance, the extended arm with the baton of command, might well become a renowned captain in the battlefield. The face itself is, to a marked degree, more animated than usual, as if the stiffness of traditional postures and the petrified weariness of the features had vanished with the shades of the gloomy apartments in the old Alcazar. For once the free light of heaven here plays the flatterer ; we feel that the breath of the clear, penetrating morning breeze from the Castilian highlands has reached the lungs, causing a lighter, more fluid blood to course through the veins. The magnificent animal, which seems so thoroughly to understand its rider, has imparted to him, as it were, some of its own overflowing vitality. “ Rider and horse,” said Calderon of Philip IV.,” seemed merged in one being.” Here the landscape, where the eye ranges over hills, gorges, plains to the far-off mountains miles away, is destitute of every trace of living beings, their abodes and works. But this solitude is no dreary wilderness ; it invites rather to roam abroad, to hold converse with the spirits of air ; it gives man a feeling as if all this were his, better guarded by yonder mountain giants than by his own hosts. Nowhere else, not even on our master’s canvas, have the Castilian uplands been at once so faithfully and poetically reproduced in colour, with their limpid atmosphere, rich blue and light-green tints, and deep silence, their bright woodlands and long line of primeval sierras. The prospect itself seems boundless, for the eye, guided by no very distinct landmarks as measures of distance, becomes lost in these azure bottom lands as in the depths of the trackless ocean. 3°8 Velazquez. The sky is clearing up to the right, so that the rider seems plunging into the light. But the range of mountains running in a line with the movement of the horse falls off in the same direction. The light itself is strongly reflected back in the glistening gold, the burnished steel, the silk, the youthful countenance, nearly all in warm rays. But obtrusive local colours are toned down, the plume being white and brown, the hose nut-brown, the pink scarf in a whitish reflected light. In the landscape all the light is transmitted, but only in cold rays. The face alone, with its whitish blonde carnation and cool bluish reflected light, presents no contrast to the ground, but is placed directly against the clouded sky. The question arises, Is the small picture in the Pitti Palace, Tacca’s model, a replica of the large one in the Prado, or was it Tacca’s statue that gave occasion to the preparation of another equestrian portrait ? In any case this small portrait is an original work. Copies are naturally in demand, and are yearly produced in Madrid ; they are often even palmed off on the public as original sketches, vaunted by connoisseurs and paid for accordingly. The best copy known to me is that in Hertford House (24 x 24 inches), a pendant to the Olivares. This has been evidently painted by a very practised hand ; but the tone is heavier, and lacks the shimmer and limpidity of the original. That of Thomas Baring (23 x 17 inches) from the collection of the poet Samuel Rogers, and now in the possession of Lord Northbrook, is a sombre, unsteady botchwork with thick impasto, wild strokes and glaring lights. Still less faithful was the copy formerly in Leigh Court (18 x 6 inches), where the king has the scowling look of a Bramarba with misrepresented lineaments, sketchily yet harshly painted. In the lifesize equestrian portrait in the Uffizi, supposed even by such a shrewd critic as Mr. Curtis to have been the work sent to Florence for Tacca’s statue, the king appears surrounded by hovering allegorical beings, a goddess of war hurling thunderbolts and a Fides planting the cross on the globe, while a Moor runs behind with a helmet. From such Rubens-like figures others have suggested that it is a copy after Velazquez by some pupil of Rubens, or by Gaspar de Crayer, who is known to have visited Madrid. This Antwerp painter was intimate with the Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand in his later years, and Gaspar’s portrait of the cardinal (1639) had so pleased the Court that the king wanted for once to swerve from his resolution of sitting only to Velazquez. Crayer’s authorship, however, is excluded by the age of the king, here represented as well advanced in his forties, and by other reasons. How this equestrian portrait reached Florence is unknown ; but so The Fraga Portrait. 309 early as the seventeenth century it had already found its way to the Pitti Palace as a work by “ Diego Velasco.” The Fraga Portrait. Since the outbreak of the Catalonian revolt (June 9, 1640), a general desire had been expressed that the king should proceed to the seat of war. As this was also his own ardent wish, he at last set out from Buen Retiro on April 26, 1642, amidst the universal acclamations of the public. But their hopes were dashed from the first. Olivares following in the king’s wake managed to detain him in Saragossa, where the round of festivities was resumed with an "abyss of expenses.” Philip took no interest in the operations, while the French General Lamotte was entering Barcelona to the mutterings of the ominous cry, Espaua se pierde (“ Spain is being lost ”). When Perpignan fell, torn with Roussillon, from the monarchy for ever, he wept jointly with Olivares, who on the arrival of “ Job’s Messengers ” craved leave to throw himself from the window. And when he really fell, the king endeavoured to rouse -himself to a sense of the situation. “ In one matter alone,” he said in the State Council of January 1643, "I tell you that you shall not stand in my way; that is, my set resolution to enter the field and be the first to risk my blood and life for the welfare of my vassals, to reawaken their old energy which has greatly fallen off during the events of these years.” On this journey to Aragon the king was accompanied by his Court painter ; in this there was nothing remarkable, it being usual at that time for commanders to have artists at hand in order to take sketches of sieges and battles. In 1643, after the recovery of Monzon, the Aragonese, Jusepe Martinez was sent to make a painting of the siege works. To this artist we are indebted for a few notes on Velazquez’ occupations during this campaign. “ A cavalier of Saragossa asked him to paint his tenderly loved daughter. The painter consented, and did the work with pleasure, so that the result was an excellent picture, in a word worthy of him. On the completion of the head (it was a half- length figure) he took it away to finish it at home, in order not to put the lady to too much trouble. But when he brought it back she protested she would have none of it at any price. When questioned as to the reason, she told her father that it did not please her at all, but especially because the collar which she wore at the sitting was trimmed with the finest Flemish lace ( valona ).” 3io Velazquez. During the journey of 1644 Velazquez painted at Fraga the already mentioned portrait of the king. A bundle of accounts from the Jornada de Aragon has been found bearing on this transaction. First of all the Carpenter Pedro Colomo had to prepare an easel for six reals, and also put a window in the Court painter’s windowless room. During the three sittings, reeds were spread on the ground, and at last a door put in, “ for people were unable to get in.” The king was kept amused by his dwarf, El Primo, who was also taken on this occasion, For both pictures cases were then made to send them forth- with to Madrid. The king wore the dress, in which he usually appeared before his army as commander-in-chief. From the figure itself it is evident that it was taken far from the atmosphere of the Alcazar. It is freer than those tall figures in black, which are perpetually receiving des- patches, and which are the incarnation of unrelenting monotony, of the weariness of etiquette. To this effect the colour contributes much, for the picture is all light and brightness. The legs seem to stand in profile, but the body and head face to the right ; the white baton in the right hand is planted against the hip ; the elbow ot the left, which holds the hat, rests on the hilt of the sword, and curiously enough both arms are disposed in a somewhat parallel position. The lines of the king’s features, now in his thirty-ninth year, are firmer, the colour fresher than hitherto. The otherwise inseparable golilla is here replaced by a broad lace collar falling on the shoulders ; the hands are white in unison with the white sleeves, the most luminous parts of the whole picture — well-nurtured, royal hands, ringless, but by no means “ washed out,” as has been supposed by those unac- FHILIP IV., 1644. The Fra'ga Portrait. quainted with the artist’s habit of dispensing with shade to indicate the fingers. Philip wears a rich light red doublet with hanging sleeves, the narrow opening showing the leather jerkin underneath. Of like colour and also covered with silver embroidery are the bandolier and hose. The only patch of gold is the golden fleece, all else — collar, sleeves of jerkin (“ pearl tone ”), lace cuffs, lace ruffle of boots, silver sheath — being white. This white on the red produces the well-known effect of a lighter or “ camelia red." The hat alone is black, which is not in keeping with the costume, and may probably be due to licence on the part of the artist, who here wished to avoid white on white, and who needed a dark part in softening contrast to the silvery red of the whole. At the same time the red of the bandolier and plume on the red of the doublet shows the 'painter’s indifference to such matters. To all this must be added the full flood of daylight, which even projects an oblique shadow from the mustachios on to the cheek. The stupendous relief is effected by the empty dark grey surface of the ground, and by the spare brown shadows, which help to bring out the collar, arm, and hat. This picture was still in the palace when Palomino wrote under Philip V., but before the middle of the eighteenth century it had already found its way to Paris. It probably passed from Bouchardon’s estate to the Tronchin collection, thence to King Stanislaus’ agent, Desenfans, and lastly to the Dulwich Gallery. 1 A second exemplar, corresponding in every respect with this, passed from Sebastian Martinez’ collection, Cadiz, to the Salamanca Gallery, and was sold for seventy-one thousand francs at the first sale of that collection in 1867. It was sent to the Alsace-Lorraine Exhibition of 1874 by Mrs. Lyne-Stephens, its present owner. It is only an old but carefully executed copy. Equestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar. Of all works of this class that of the young Prince Balthasar Carlos has always, and rightly, been the greatest favourite. Here is concentrated all that is captivating in a creation of the pictorial Art — life and motion, 1 In the Catalogue of Francis Trouchin’s sale (1798) occurs the entry II ticnt beaucoup de Van Dyck. It est peint avec une naivete , 2 me legerete , et une fraicheur de conleur admirable. La verite et Veffet y sout an plus haut point. It vient du cclcbre Bouchardon. Thore also hits off the impression it makes in his usual unerring way : — “ Clair et tendre coniine le plus fin Metsu. Chef-d'oeuvre de couleur et de distinction .” / 312 V ELAZQUEZ. all-pervading light and prospect in the distance, air and lustre, mass and contrast, the soul of the artist and consummate mastery of his technique ; lastly, unclouded and intact state of the picture. The little fellow, now in his seventh year, is seated on his light chestnut pony as firmly and lightly as his father, the first rider in the kingdom, and he holds the marshal’s baton extended over the animal’s head in a style that could not be surpassed by Don Juan of Austria himself. His very mount, as Palomino remarks, “ smelleth the battle afar oft',” sure of victory under his rider. The part he plays is here scarcely more a pastime than with his father and grandfather, for the kings of Spain had long forgotten how to wield this staff of command in full earnest. The little steed bounding out of the frame athwart the scene is more fore- shortened than usual. In this fore- shortening the body is rounded almost to a ball, about which flutter the long mane and sweeping tail. And the prince is decked in all his bravery — broad plumed hat, dark green velvet jacket with white sleeves, red scarf diversely embroidered in gold, long, close-fitting leather boots. By contrast with the land- scape all this has made the picture the most shimmering and dazzling of equestrian portraits, “a gem of tone and harmony” (Imbert). It is a fresh morning sky in spring, streaked with bluish and lustrous white clouds, the heaven and mountain ranges permeated by a blue-green aerial tone, uninterrupted by a single jarring note. Hill and dale are bare, except for the sparsely wooded eminence behind a sandy steep in the mid-distance. From 'the depths rises a thin haze, leaving the snow- clad crests glittering in the sun ; but not a single tree to indicate the foreground. On the cool rich ground stand horse and rider, with their brown, yellow, red and green harmonies. The golden sheen is again reflected Equestrian Portrait of Olivares. 313 in the silver of clouds, snow and haze, interwoven as with a silken tissue of metallic threads, a concert of guitars and mandolins. The face alone is soft and luminous, painted with thin pigment ; and here the quiet pleasure of the billowy galloping motion is well expressed in the dark eye steadily gazing in the distance. A second contrast is given by the deep stillness of Nature and the metallic clatter of the steed galloping by, as if the magician’s wand had suddenly conjured up this animated group in the midst of the surrounding solitude. This picture may be taken as the most perfect example of the master’s second manner, more suited than any other to afford a measure of what he intended and was able to accomplish at the height of his Art. Patriotic enthusiasm placing him as a colourist above Rubens and Titian here becomes intelligible. The small picture in Dulwich College is not a sketch, but an old copy without a trace of the colour and light effects of the original. The best reproduction (including paintings) is Richard Earlom’s engraving, published by Boydell in 1784. A larger, but also inferior, copy formerly in the Salamanca collection is now in the palace of the Duke of Fernan Nunez. The picture in the Hermitage (426) represents not Prince Balthasar, but probably Charles II. Equestrian Portrait of Olivares. The minister who had stirred up all those wars now wanted to see himself also in the saddle, as a general of cavalry, although he had never smelt powder. The famous equestrian portrait of the “great protector and Maecenas” was in the last century in the possession of the Marquis of Ensenada, and later acquired by Charles III. for the new palace. In this work, generally known through a feeble etching by Goya (1778), Bermudez considered that the master strove to outdo himself, for in Rubens’ equestrian effigy of the Duke of Lerma, also painted in full armour (1603), he had a prototype not easily to be surpassed. The ambitious minister wished to be depicted in the attitude of a field-officer leading thousands to the attack, and showing them the path to honour at the risk of his own life. Thus we see him in rich armour damascened in gold, with broad plumed hat, gold-embroidered red scarf, mounted on his Andalusian gray in the correct pose charging at full speed in a diagonal line towards the background.' He seems to have emerged from the woods on a spot commanding a view of an extensive 314 Velazquez. plain, where squadrons of horse are already engaged. He turns round to his men calling upon them to join in the combat towards which his baton is directed. From the hamlet beyond the battle-field rise columns of smoke, which were later interpreted as a symbol of the conflagration which he had kindled to the ruin of the land. Quevedo afterwards compared him to Nero rejoicing over burning Rome from the Tarpeian Rock. The picture thus takes the form of a definite action, recalling the battle-pieces in Buen Retiro, and particularly Jose Leonardo’s treatment of the Duke of Feria ; only here the attitude is explained by a message which the officer in the rear is communicating to the duke. Although he had never taken part in military operations, or pos- sibly for that very reason, Olivares was always raving for war, protesting that he could not live without war, assuredly the most frothy, bellicose dilettante in the annals of Spain. “He lacked none of the qualities of a great cap- tain,” wrote the Court his- torian Virgilio Malvezzi, “except that he had never seen active service.” The academic generalship and stage battle-scene may raise a prejudice against the picture, for the general is undoubtedly a humbug, just as his brown hair is a sham. His habits were anything but military, and his enemies sneered at this “ heroic minister ” and “ grand old man,” who was so delicate that he refused to go on board a vessel, as at Barcelona in 1632, for fear of seasickness. When his portrait was exposed for sale in Madrid in 1635 it was pelted with stones, and the same occurred again at Saragossa in 1642. But these are outward considerations, and it must be admitted that the figure suits well the assumed role. So true is this that, were the sub- orn vares ON HORSEHACK. Equestrian Portrait of Olivares. 315 ject unknown, he would perhaps be taken for some leader of invincible " Ironsides ” in the great war. In fact the French critic Charles Blanc describes the picture as that of a hero leading the charge without bluster or ostentation. The attitude of horse and rider was no invention of the artist, but was probably derived from the school of Rubens, though likely enough to suggest itself independently as suitable for the portrait of a military captain. It must, however, be admitted -that the rider does not give the impression of sitting gracefully in the saddle, which is due partly to his humped back, partly to the strongly fore-shortened front part of the horse, which seems too small, disappearing behind the rider. The saddle also seems shifted forward a little too near to the horse’s neck, as in Van Dyck’s equestrian portrait of Francesco Maria Balbi in the Balbi Palace, Genoa. The Olivarez in other respects bears a remarkable resemblance to this work, which Velazquez may have seen and sketched when passing through Genoa in 1629. Of our portrait there exist two smaller replicas, half lifesize, one belonging to Lord Elgin of Broomhall, Fifeshire, the other in the Schleissheim Gallery. Both are genuine originals, the former perhaps better executed than the large work, which may probably be later than either. It differs from both in some particulars, such as the colour of the charger, the treatment of the middle distance, of the battle-field, clouds, and trees to the right. Lord Elgin’s seems the first both in time and excellence. This splendid painting comes perhaps nearer than any other to that sense of colour, unrivalled specimens of which were produced in every period of Venetian Art. All observers speak enthusiastically of its wonderful animation, astounding mastery of colour and chiaroscuro , learned draughtsmanship in the horse, unsurpassed artistic power in so small a space. 1 Seldom has the inimitable shimmer peculiar to Velazquez been more delightfully rendered. The light-blue azure sky, traversed by luminous white clouds, supplies the ground for the figure lit up by a ray of sunshine. The inlaid gold of armour and accoutrements, the brocade embroidery of the saddle-cloth and hose, the flash of the muskets, all sparkle like a rich display of gold, gems and diamonds. Although the large work is referred by the Madrid catalogue unhesi- 1 Athenceu?n , 1876, i. 62. Waagen also praises its “great life and animation o conception, admirable in keeping, and broad and masterly in .execution” [Treasures iv. 444). Size of Lord Elgin's 49 x 40 inches; of the Schleissheim 135 x ri4 m. ; of the Prado 3‘ 1 3 x 239 m. Velazquez. 316 tatingly to the period between 1639 and 1642, no reasons are given. The head of Olivares certainly lacks the elderly and somewhat bloated look already seen in the print engraved by Panneels after Velazquez, in 1638. Hence it can scarcely have been painted later than 1637, while, to judge from the tone and chiaroscuro , the work might be referred even to an earlier date than the portrait of Prince Balthasar, executed about the }’ear 1636. The Portraits of Philip III. and Queen Margarita of Austria. About this time the mania for equestrian portraits would seem to have run high, and as none remained amongst the living worthy to be enrolled in such exalted company, they were fain to fall back on departed royalty. Such pictures already existed of Charles V. and Philip II., executed by Titian and Rubens, and Velazquez was now called upon to fill the gap between those rulers and the reigning sovereign. Hence equestrian por- traits of both his parents, enframed in gold, were duly supplied by our master for the Salon del Rcino. Having never seen them in the flesh, it may be asked whether Velazquez had any such portraits by former Court painters to guide him ? Or did he entrust them to associates? For these figures show nothing of his peculiar Art at any period of its development. But then no other artist in Madrid could any longer paint like this in the fifth decade of the century, when Velazquez undertook to complete the series of equestrian portraits. Nor do they give the impression of being copies ; and anyone, apart from other considerations, would no doubt refer the heads at least to a Pantoja de la Cruz or a Bartolome Gonzalez. They must have been painted before 1 61 1, when Margarita died. Hence old equestrian portraits must have already existed ; only the style now seemed somewhat old-fashioned, and it was decided to have them thoroughly recast. The heads, costumes, and housings were left un- changed ; but horses and landscapes, which no longer pleased, were so completely repainted that, in one case, it is impossible even to conjecture the nature of the original outlines. Philip III. (Prado, No. 1604; size 3 - oox3'i4 m.) is mounted on a heavy white animal, galloping three-quarters right, and stirring up the dust, while mane and tail flutter in the fresh seabreeze down to the pasterns. Here something has been revised in the figure, as in the right arm holding the baton, which has been brought more forward, the original being only loosely covered over. Last Portraits of Olivares. 3 1 7 The scene is a spacious marine inlet, where the shore beyond the restless curling waves shows blue hills and a square-shaped summit. Colour of the horse, sea, clouds, hills have all been retouched in a white tone. This imparts to the picture a somewhat feeble character, which, however, accords with the head, where there is a striking absence of intelligence, energy and expression. The picture of the queen (No. 1065 ; size 2 - 97 x 3'09 m.) is much deeper and heavier in the colouring. She seems aged, with harder features than in the delicate, beautiful portrait by Pantoja de la Cruz in the Museum (No. 926). The face, with its hawk-nose and small contracted mouth, has acquired somewhat the look of a cockatoo, with which the small high hat and white plume is in keeping. She mounts a superb chestnut-and-white palfrey, which also moves obliquely left, so that king and queen appear as if riding towards each other. Here the landscape is broken, with hills brought close together and dense underwood in the ravines. But underneath the slopes and thicket may be detected the original park and ornamental grounds, with hexagonal parterre enclosed by tall trees, and a sumptuous fountain with three tiers of shell basins and statues — probably Aranjuez. The distant view is painted a dark, dull green, the evening sky overcast with layers of yellow-red clouds. To appreciate the effect intended to be produced by all these equestrian portraits they should doubtless be seen in juxtaposition. Richard Cumber- land describes in eloquent words the impression they made on him in the large banqueting-hall of the new palace, where both royal couples, Olivares, Philip II. by Rubens, and Vauloo’s Philip V. were brought together. Last Portraits of Olivares. Of portraits of Olivares dating from the last years of his power three, at least, are extant, in which Velazquez had a greater or less share. There are, moreover, three or four copper-plates, two of which have been ascribed to the master himself, and several copies. All must have been executed before the fall of the minister in January 1643. It is also reasonable to suppose that Olivares would have scarcely granted sittings to any artists, except his own protege , and this inference is borne out by the character of these portraits. There may be shades of difference in the expression, or in the tone, according to the greater or less number of colours on the palette, and according as he is depicted full-length, half-length, or as a bust. But outlines, features, modellings, details, all agree almost as completely as in mechanical reproductions. o Velazquez. Thus all point back to one prototype, and are in fact studio works, in which the hand of the master took more or less a part. But I should scarcely venture to single out this prototype from amongst the extant exemplars. Nor is the original of Hermann Panneels’ engraving now known. On the other hand, Germany possesses a well-painted replica in the Dresden Portrait Gallery (No. 622), originally from Modena. Here Olivares, a half-length figure, wearing the large green Alcantara Cross on doublet and cloak, stands on the right side of the frame, receiving or deliver- ing a letter. A change in the treatment of the wig, which was at first drawn broader and deeper, seems to exclude the idea of a copy. In harmony with this false hair, which completely covers the ears, the face has received a ruddy tone, which is still further accentuated by the whitish ground. But doubts as to the authenticity of the work are suggested by the weakened plastic effect due to the lack of high lights. After the same original is the broad, vigorous, fiery bust in the Hermitage from the Coesvelt collection. But, as is often the case with hasty works, this is almost a monochrome, of a dull earthy tone, giving the impression of a person stricken with fever. The expression is repellent. The Hermitage also possesses a full-length portrait in black velvet Court dress, which, with the companion piece, Philip IV., was acquired in 1850 for thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and fifty florins, from King William of Holland’s collection. It had previously fetched only eleven thousand five hundred and twenty francs at the Lapeyriere sale, Paris 1825. 1 This some- what overvalued picture can be accepted only as the work of a pupil with corrections by the master. Attitude and surroundings agree in every respect with the portrait executed in the third decade (p. 1 1 9), except that the head is that of the fifth, while the tone resembles that of the Dresden work, only with lustrous lights. The glance is that of a nervous, broken-down old man, the mere ruin of the high-born nobleman, the smooth favourite and wily politician (Stirling- Maxwell) . Since the disastrous year 1640, and more particularly since the treason- able proceedings of his cousin Medina-Sidonia, a notable change had taken place in Olivares’ features and complexion, combined with symptoms of mental disturbance. The heroic lineaments, which at one time reminded the Austrian envoy of an emperor, have here disappeared, giving place to a swollen, bloated appearance. Owing to the loss of teeth the mouth has contracted, causing the chin to curve more upwards, thus imparting a somewhat compressed, cunning expression to the features. The eyes also appear sunken, with lowering, false, even cruel cast. The 1 It had passed to the Lapeyriere from the Delahante sale, London, 1817. J ULIANILLO. 319 thick, reddish wig enframing the whole completes the picture of a really sinister countenance. The bust formerly in the collection of the Prince of Peace, brought to England by Buchanan and sold in 1814 to Lord Lansdowne, is described by a critic in the Athenceum (January 27, 1877) as the genuine original of countless repetitions. But the qualifying and correct addition : “ Excessively dark, somewhat crude in the shadows, and rather heavy in the half-tones,” will relieve all connoisseurs of Velazquez from the trouble of testing this statement. It is in fact a sombre, crudely painted botchwork, with red carnations. The portrait brought over by General Meade and formerly in Richard Ford’s possession is better, but also painted in that heavy brown tone, which is foreign to our master. Some interest is presented by two small copper-plates, each known only in one extant print. Velazquez’ conception of Olivares’ features is in both so carefully and so accurately reproduced, that they have been as- cribed to the painter himself, who however would surely have preferred the etching needle. The first, in the Madrid National Library, with hard metallic cross- hatchings in the face, is evidently by a very indifferent engraver. The second, now in the Berlin Copperplate Cabinet, belonged to Cean Bermudez, who wrote a memorandum on the back of the sheet, to the effect that it was ‘'engraved by Velazquez.” The head alone is finished, the face being evidently stippled by a practised Flemish engraver. The incomplete state of the work may possibly be due to the minister’s sudden downfall. J ULIANILLO. This event was preceded, perhaps precipitated, by an occurrence of which a reminiscence survives in Velazquez’ portrait of Olivares’ natural son, Julianillo. The picture, representing a cavalier about thirty years old, was seen in the Altamira collection by Lord Francis Egerton, who afterwards (1827) acquired it at a sale in London for the nominal price of ^37 16s. It is now in Bridgewater House. This Julianillo, son of Dona Isabel de Anversa, a notorious Court beauty, had in his time played many parts : in Madrid a street-singer ; in Seville page to the archbishop ; in Mexico mendicant, peasant and gaol-bird, there narrowly escaping the gallows. And now after serving in Flanders and Italy he had again turned up in the capital where he married Leonor de Unzueta, a damn publica de la Coiic. 320 Velazquez. Olivares had lost his only daughter, the Duchess Medina de las Torres, in 1626, and it now (1640) suddenly occurred to him that this scape- grace son might serve, fante de mieax, to perpetuate his name and title. He accordingly publicly adopted Julianillo, and decided with his wife’s consent to leave him the Olivares estate together with the duchy of San Lucar. Philip also not only recognized the act of adoption, but received him at Court and assigned him quarters at Buen Retiro as gentilhombre de la cdmara and companion to the crown prince! Then the ominous name Julian, regarded in Spain as synonymous with Judas, was exchanged for the more sonorous Enrique Felipe de Guzman — "for I wish,” remarked Olivares, “ that he shall worthily sustain the memory of my great father, and atone for my errors and my less worthy memory.” His wife, who had been banished to Seville, having just then oppor- tunely departed this life, Olivares married him to the first lady of the palace, Dona Juana Fernandez de Velasco, daughter of the Duke of Frias, Constable of Castile. The wedding took place on May 28, 1642, the royal couple being witnesses to the marriage contract, and the haughty Castilian nobles, the cardinals and other dignitaries obsequiously paying their respects to Don Enrique in Buen Retiro. Velazquez painted this heir of the Guzmans in his new Court dress, his hand playing with the shield of the Order of Alcantara. But the artist was too proud to take much pains with his work, which he executed with only “ half of his spirit,” leaving the sumptuous new costume to a pupil. The taste of the upstart here obtrudes itself in the garish colours otherwise avoided by our master. The figure is that of a slim, comely youth, with straight bushy eye- brows, kindly brown eyes, broad-bridged nose, thick red upper lip, high narrow open forehead. He wears a leather jerkin, wide white linen sleeves, with deep lace cuffs, puffing out through the slashings ; red scarf and hose ; top-boots with lace trimming ; in his left hand he holds a hat decked with white and blue ostrich plumes. Pose and expression, half- pleased, half-embarrassed at all this finery, betray the parvenu. This event was followed the very next year by the long pending catastrophe, when Olivares discovered, like all fallen favourites, that “ no creature loved him.” He withdrew first to Loeches, and then to the small Castilian town of Toro, where he died on June 20 of the same year, 1643. Don Enrique was banished from the Court, dying within the same decade; Dona Juana — their son having died in his infancy — retired to a Prince Balthasar. 321 convent ; and the title of Duke of San Lucar passed to the Duke of Medina de las Torres, who had married Olivares’ only daughter. Olivares’ nephew and successor, Don Luis de Haro, appears never to have given Velazquez a sitting. The equestrian portrait formerly in Lord Northwick’s collection, Thirlestane House, and purchased by Baron James Rothschild for £g 66 in 1859, had no doubt been described as a superlative specimen of Velazquez’ Art. But this work is the production of a Flemish painter executed in the style of Van Dyck, and has absolutely nothing to do either with Velazquez, Haro, the Spanish school, or the Spanish nation. Prince Balthasar Carlos. Velazquez was still in Rome when the glad tidings arrived that at last (October 17, 1629) after ten years of disappointed hopes an heir had been born to the ruler of two worlds. It now became the duty of the Court painter to chronicle the growth of the young prince in a long series of portraits from his second to his sixteenth year, when this “ light of the palace ” was suddenly extinguished — a bright dawn followed by no mid-day sun. Yet what an inexhaustible fund of shifting phenomena lies embodied even in the feeblest flower of mortality when disclosed by the magic touch of Art ! Painters with a world of prominent personalities at their command have left us nothing but monotone repetitions. Here from monotony itself has been extracted a little world of ever new, ever fascinating creations. The Child . — According to Bermudez Velazquez painted the child the year after his return from Rome, and reference to the charge for such a portrait occurs in an official document of 1634. From the same period dates the picture in Castle Howard, which formerly bore the title of “ the Prince of Parma,” and which was ascribed to Correggio. It was first recognized as a Velazquez by Waagen, who, "judging from concep- tion, colouring and treatment,” pronounced it "an admirable picture by Velazquez” ( Treasures , iii., 323). The flaxen-haired little figure, in a long dark-green gold-embroidered frock, stands somewhat back, the oval surface of the face painted in a soft light, and animated only by the brown eyes which it had of its mother. The left hand rests on the sword, while the right holds the baton with the grip of an heir to a throne, although using it as a walking- stick. The scarf alone is red, but the whole figure is enveloped by a flood of 21 Velazquez. 322 imperial purple and scarlet — curtain, hangings, carpet, cushion on which lies the black velvet hat with its gold band and white ostrich plume. Two steps in advance a dwarf, also in dark green coat with large white apron, is encouraging the child to follow, holding out a silver bell in one hand and an apple in the other. Of the whole series this is perhaps the most carefully executed, affording an excellent example of the master’s middle style. The same figure of the child, but quite alone and in a light grey silver-embroidered silk frock, was formerly (1853) in the Standish Gallery, but has now joined two other portraits of the prince in Hertford House. A woodcut of this appeared in the Art Journal, 1852, p. 361. It fetched ^1680, Ford remarking that “the fortunate possessor will have added to his gallery a specimen such as the Queen of Spain only can furnish the means of rivalling when she shall break up the Museum at Madrid.” 1 Waagen also speaks of “ its marvellous charm. The conception is highly animated, the delicate flesh tones positively luminous, and the careful execution of every part unusually sustained.” 2 The Little Rider . — The young prince showed from the first a talent for horsemanship, which naturally delighted his father. Philip often referred to t.he matter in his correspondence with his brother Ferdinand, who on his part sent back encouraging presents, such as a suit of armour and two Italian greyhounds from Lombardy in 1633. There also came a pony stallion, described as “ a little devil,” who before being mounted was to be carefully bridled and to receive half-a-dozen lashes, after which “he would go like a little dog.” Perhaps this is the identical pony on which the prince is mounted in the scene where he is represented taking his first lessons in the riding school. Two sketches of such scenes are extant, both in English collections. The first, the smaller of the two, but with more figures and better executed, belongs to Sir Richard Wallace ; it was apparently painted as a memento of these first efforts in horsemanship. In the background of the arena we see the blank wall of a house, perhaps the royal mews on the Palace Square, with turreted dovecot and a balcony where are two ladies and a dwarf. Below stand some ten figures ranged against the wall, two mounted ; in the middle an object which looks like a large red 1 Athenaeum , 1853, i.,710. 2 Treasures, iv., 80. George Scharf calls attention to the quaintness caused by “ the discrepancy between the age of the child and the costume, which is pleasantly old-fashioned.” — Manchester Exhibition, p. 81. Prince Balthasar. 323 sedan-chair. On the right is a narrow course between hoardings with spectators, and a rider followed by his groom. Quite in front, on the left, is the four-year-old prince on his stout pony, executing a correct pesade. Dressed in a black jacket with red sash and plumed hat shading forehead and eyes, he wheels round triumphantly, hand on hip, “ quite jauntily,” and, like a very great man, "cool on a mettlesome steed” ( Thore ). Before him to the left stands the aged riding-master and a thin dwarf with the long riding-whip (?), and behind the horse another of the same height, but stouter. To enlarge the space in the foreground another figure is introduced in the right-hand corner, a cavalier facing towards the background. Above the dwarf to the left is a coach with a man leaning over the roof. All these and other figures are executed in a limpid grey, like shadows, knocked off with a few strokes almost exclusively in black and white. Walls, floor, sky are not very clearly distinguished, so that it looks like the view of a camera obscura with its movable shadows. But the rider stands out all the more massively in this shadowy company. “ It expresses to perfection the talent of the master,” again says Thore. In 1828 Wilkie saw such a picture in the house of Jose Madrazo, director of the gallery, painter and Art dealer — "a dupli- cate of the Velazquez of Earl Grosvenor’s of the little Infante Don Balthasar on horseback in the courtyard.” 1 On his recommendation Woodburn purchased this specimen for the poet Rogers, from whose collection it passed for £1,270 10s. to Lord Hertford. A few years later the same subject was again treated on a larger scale (57 X 83 inches) and with modifications. In this picture, which is also a sketch, the prince rides a piebald horse, and here both parents occupy the balcony of the red mews roofed with grey tiles. The features SCENE IN THE RIDING-SCHOOL. 1 Cunningham: Life of Wilkie , ii., 466. (Size, 51 x 40 inches.) 3 2 4 Velazquez. and costume of Philip can clearly be distinguished in his black jerkin, plumed hat and leather boots, as well as of Isabella accompanied by the little princess, and between them farther back two ladies, one in the convent habit. Here also Olivares is now introduced as the prince’s caballerizo mayor , with white scarf, hose and shoes, holding his hat in his left hand, and extending his right to receive a lance from the riding- master. Behind the latter is a bare-headed figure with large ears and white ruff in submissive attitude. Here again all the figures are shadowy, but still quite clearly delineated and reduced according to their several perspective depths. Had Velazquez conceived and executed many such little pictures, the Spanish school would now be in possession of cabinet pieces needing to fear comparison with none. This sketch passed in 1806 from the Welbore Ellis Agar collection to Earl Grosvenor. Is it the highly-prized picture which in Palomino’s time was in the possession of Olivares’ nephew, the Marquis of Heliche ? Palomino’s words, however, would suggest a much larger canvas, and in fact this abozzo might well supply the foundation for a magnificent painting. It gives a foretaste of the Meninas, forming an open-air pendant to that chamber scene. The large equestrian portrait of the prince (p. 312) places before us the result of the noble equerry’s training. The Little Sportsman . — Don Balthasar was also an accomplished sports- man ; nor, young as he was, were his exploits in the field mere child’s-play. In January 1638 he shot a wild boar in the Sierra, the bullet going right through, and the same year, firing from his seat in a bull-ring, he struck a steer in the forehead. To commemorate these two events a copper-plate was engraved in 1642 by Cornelius Galle in Brussels. Here he is presenting his gun to Don Alonso Martinez de Espinar, both trophies lying in front, two dogs in leash on the right, and an attendant holding up the royal arms emblazoned on a lion’s skin ( Curtis , p. 59). About this very time must have been executed the portrait in the Prado (No. 1 1 1 8 ; 1*58 x 1 • 1 3 m.), where the prince stands near a large open balcony-window in the Pardo in black dress like that of the equestrian portrait, his right hand grasping the little gun, his left resting on the sword- belt. This picture has been doubted, and in the catalogue for 1872 is even entered amongst the works by pupils, the hand of the novice being supposed to be betrayed by the poverty of invention in the accessories, by the thin, sketchy impaslo, and hesitation in drawing the features. Nevertheless its authenticity does not appear quite so questionable. The Prince Balthasar. 325 colouring is unlike that of any known contemporary painter, while not a trace can be detected of the copyist’s hand. The thin flat modelling occurs also in the head of the equestrian portrait, and the landscape bears the unmistakable stamp of Velazquez’ hand. A replica of the figure is still extant, which may have been the portrait painted for Prince Ferdinand in Flanders. It is now in the Duke of Abercorn’s collection, having been purchased in 1837 of Sir George War- render for ,£410 (size 62^ x 52-^ inches). Here the prince has put on his black embroidered plumed hat, and is surrounded by three hounds, two of which are repetitions from the Madrid hunting portrait ; but the brown greyhound has now found a companion, the couple being possibly those presented by Prince Ferdinand to his little nephew. In a letter received in the spring of 1639 thanking the king for a pic- ture of Don Balthasar by Velazquez, Ferdinand writes : “ The portrait of the prince, whom God preserve, is splendid ; I was quite beside myself with joy, and kiss your Majesty’s hand for this memento. . . . God protect him, he is a handsome lad.” Whether this be the Abercorn painting it is difficult to decide, owing to the present condition of that work, in which the figure, and still more the sky, have suffered. On the mountain range lies a heavy dark-green layer as of repainting, 1 while the clear light-blue sky above has remained unaltered. A picture, in which Don Balthasar is represented loading his gun, was purchased by Sir W. Knighton, physician to George IV., at the Lapeyriere sale (1825) for one thousand francs. I saw it in May 1885 at one of Christie and Manson’s sales, where it fetched only a hundred and fifty guineas. In February 1888 it was sent by S. H. Fraser to the Exhibition of the Old Masters in the Royal Academy ; but in this work there is not a touch of Velazquez, and it may be doubted whether it is even a copy, and not a modern forgery. The Little Wooer . — When the hopes of a dynasty depend on a single life, thoughts run on the choice of a bride from the very birth of the future heir. As Don Balthasar approached his tenth year, the age when his father had been betrothed to Isabella of Bourbon, his portrait was sent off to friendly Courts, sometimes dressed in black gala costume, sometimes in military uniform. The variety of expression is remarkable, making it probable that his features underwent great changes according to circumstances. Until his fourteenth year the prince had been the unwilling associate mainly of women and priests. This was a subject of general comment even abroad, and in Job Ludolf’s Theatre of Universal History there is a copper- 1 “ Here Reynolds’ hand has been suspected.” — Athenceurn , 1878, p. 56. Velazquez. 326 plate illustration of his education, where he is figured dancing with Court damsels. Still, in the curriculum of his studies a corner was left for letters, and his teacher, Don Juan de Isassi Idiaquez, vaunted his quick apprehension and rapid progress in Latin, rhetoric, geography and so forth. To the king, who was thrown into ecstasies at his prowess in the chase, such accomplishments seemed ridiculous. But when the teacher ventured to suggest that the time had come to initiate him in statecraft, Philip put his foot down, remarking that “ he should not meddle with things his ancestors had not meddled with.” Utterances were already heard, which seemed ominous for the future. Amongst the portraits in Court dress painted for presentation is the full- length figure in the Belvedere (Room 7, No. 6 ; size 48 by 38 inches). Don Balthasar's betrothal with Mariana, daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand III., had long been planned, although it was not formally settled and announced till the year 1646. He here appears on a rich purple ground in a black velvet dress with silver embroidered loops, bandolier of silver tissue, short black cloak, left hand on his sword, right on the arm of a red upholstered chair, red table-cloth and curtain, broad-brimmed hat on the table. Above the stiff golilla rises an indifferent, almost sulky face. This portrait is repeated as a bust in the picture seen at the Manchester Exhibition, which belonged to Colonel Hugh Baillie, and again in the much-lauded figure in Lord Hertford’s gallery, which came from the Wells collection. The latter, where the dress is dark-green, does not inspire confidence in its authenticity, though the colouring has been spoken of as “ quite Titianesque,” and though the same critic assures us that the work '‘is highly esteemed and deserves much admiration.” 1 The colouring matter, especially in the brown of floor and sky, shows wide cracks and is even clotted, and moreover altered by the gold tone of the varnish, probably due to repainting in England. Behind the prince is a casket covered with red velvet, which Stirling- Maxwell thought exactly like a dressing-case presented by Philip IV. to the Prince of Wales. Our “ little wooer ” appears in a much more sympathetic mood in two pictures, where, as in the equestrian portrait, he is represented as a born captain, but in resplendent gold armour like his great-grandfather in Titian’s magnificent portrait in the Prado, and like Pietro Tacca’s statues of his father and grandfather. In this panoply he was wont to appear with his mother at reviews during the Catalonian war, to the intense delight of the Madrilenos. On December 31, 1639, the Tuscan envoy wrote: “A portrait of the crown prince has been made in coat-of-mail and full gala, and sent to 1 G. Scharf : Manchester Exhibition , p. 81. Prince Balthasar. 327 England, as if his Highness’ marriage with that princess were close at hand. But many think it has been done only to keep the king in good humour and hope.” In the catalogue of Charles I.’s collections there accordingly occurs the entry (No. 14, p. 170): “The picture of the now Prince of Spain,” and the same recurs in the papers of the sale under the Commonwealth. 1 A portrait answering to the above description has lately come to light in Windsor, where it had been packed away, and now hangs in an apartment in Buckingham Palace (size 39 by 22 1- inches). This time we have the picture of a cheerful, healthy, bright lad, proud of his armour and golden spurs. The attitude with the right leg well advanced is bold and spirited ; the right hand holds a baton, the left in a steel gauntlet rests on his baldric. The broad white lace collar, the large gold-embroidered red sash, the metallic sheen, produce a brilliant effect on the dark ground between the crimson of chair, curtain and table. The warm saturated tone of the interior with the play of the broad silver and gold reflected lights of armour and lace forms a contrast to the equestrian portrait with the cool, uniformly diffused shimmer of the free air. A replica in The Hague Gallery from King William II.’s collection may be traced back to the Rainer Cabinet (1821). It would be difficult to determine the mutual relations of these works without studying them side by side, especially as in the English specimen allowance has to be made for the varnishing. But both were obviously produced about the same time in Velazquez’ studio. A certain harshness and dryness even in the face strikes a discordant note in the Dutch picture, where the ground is light grey inclining to green. When the prince reached his fifteenth year, it seemed at last to be remembered that the future “ greatest monarch in the world ” should also begin to understand that there was such a thing as public business. He was now accordingly admitted to take part in the Cabinet Councils. In order to give him a vivid impression of his great-grandfather’s large mind, Philip took him for the first time to the Escorial, and showed him in one day the “ one wonder of the world.” Now he received his separate establishment, and was henceforth free from the “confinement of the palace.” Soon after (June 1646) his betrothal with Mariana of Austria was officially announced, and when he accompanied his father to the seat of war, a Court poet described “ the new Adonis of a Teutonic Venus, as he strode along pike in hand, bold as beautiful.” The portrait in the Prado (No. 1,083; size 2 '°9 X 1 '44 m -) probably 1 “ Oct. 23, 1651 : To Mr. Edward Harrison and Company, Prince of Spain, i. 100." — Hunter s Certificates , British Museum. Velazquez. 328 represents him in the last year of his life. It forms a perfect pendant to those of his father and uncle executed twenty years previously. Don Balthasar stands facing to the right, in sombre black Court dress with short cloak, his left hand resting on the arm of a red chair, which is partly hidden by a curtain. The gloved right hand holds his hat, in which is the left glove. The well-grown figure, on a dark greenish ground, stands firmly with clear brow, sunburnt complexion, brown lustreless eyes, somewhat dull shadows on the face, a figure about which one can scarcely say anything either good or bad. It is one of the few indifferent works of our master, the only one in the gallery which runs the risk of being passed by. Soon after the betrothal the prince caught a cold in Saragossa, which taking a bad turn brought his young life to a close. When the secretary’s hand faltered in the attempt to communicate the terrible tidings to the gov- ernors, Philip took the pen and wrote to Leganes : “ Marquis, — We must all of us yield to God’s will, and I more than others. It has pleased Him to take my son from me about an hour ago. Mine is now such grief as you can conceive at such a loss ; but also full resignation in the hand of God, and courage and resolution to provide for the defence of my lands, for they also are my children, and if we have lost one we must preserve the others ; and so I beseech you not to relax in the operations of this campaign until Lerida is relieved, as I trust in the Lord. From here you shall be energetically supported.” Well may Giustiniani have remarked that the king might have sought a more suitable occasion to display his command over the affections ! With this death the fate of dynasty and monarchy was sealed. Doubtless fifteen years later the ruler, broken down with age and ailments, saw the birth of yet another heir, who also bore the ominous name of Carlos. But what a contrast between the feeble, languid figure of this “ child of old age,” also frequently depicted by painters, and the blithe, lively youth, who had perished in his prime ! The manly sports and exercises, in which the one displayed such skill and delight, acted depressingly on the other, a weakling more suited for tonsure and cowl than for the crown placed on his head within five years of his birth. One a young life, wasted by “ the worm in the bud,” the other an “ apple rotten at the heart.” Town Views : Saragossa. In the year 1645 Philip had taken the crown prince northwards to receive the customary homage of the Navarrese and Aragonese states, which was to be followed by the betrothal. In August the privileges of Aragon were solemnly confirmed by him in the Seo at Saragossa. As a reminiscence of these days Saragossa. 3 2 9 Philip commissioned Velazquez’ son-in-law, Mazo, to prepare a view of the city with figures representing the royal suite. The point of view, said to have been chosen by Don Balthasar himself, lies on the left bank of the Ebro, below the stone bridge in the Altabas suburb, and according to the local tradition in the rich monastery of San Lazaro, a foundation of King James the Conqueror. This structure was destroyed during the War of Inde- pendence (1808-9) but it stood near the site of the present railway station. This view of Saragossa (i‘8o x 3-31 metres) is the best landscape left us by Mazo, painted with a clearness and conscientiousness that reminded Stirling-Max well of Canaletto. It gives us not only a true picture of the ancient Aragonese capital, that genuine type of old Spanish towns, but also an “ instantaneous photograph ” of the varied company at the time grouped round the sovereign. Although Mazo has introduced his own name alone in the Latin inscrip- tion, 1 certain critics have been led to conclude on strong internal evidence that the numerous figures are by the hand of Velazquez himself. They seemed in fact too good for Mazo. Nevertheless, a closer comparison might perhaps show that Velazquez’ peculiar touch and coloration cannot here be recognized with absolute certainty. Under a deep-blue sky, broken by thin streaks of clouds, and higher up by a few light cumuli , the mighty stream rolls down its dark-green volume, now at its lowest summer level, animated by craft with violet awnings and sails. But it has left a memorial of its fierce periodical ravages in the old seven-arched bridge erected in the fifteenth century (1437). The great central arch, with a span of one hundred and thirty feet, had been swept away during the floods of March 1643, and the costly repairs had met a similar fate in the February of the present year (1645). Man}' houses and convents were washed away, and the traces of all this devastation are seen in the picture, where the bridge is the most conspicuous object. Beyond the river the city spreads out from west to east with its tall belfries, massive palaces with their lofty galleries and watch-towers, huge churches looming up above the sea of houses, a prospect closely resembling those of mediaeval Italian towns. Even still in a period of decadence, symbolized by the broken arch in mid-stream, the spirit of that once powerful and highly-endowed race speaks eloquently through these stones of dogged energy, followed by indolent neglect. 1 This inscripti on ru ns IVSSV / PHILIPPI. MAX. HISP. REGIS / IOANNES BAPTISTA |^J VRBI CAESAR. AVG. VLTIMVM PENICILLVM IMP. . . . ANNO MDCXLVII. 330 Velazquez. The stone bridge, lying on the main highway between Madrid and Barcelona, leads to the Puerta del angel, a strong gateway flanked by two buttressed towers ; between two balconied windows is seen a picture of the tutelary angel. Here a coach-and-six is approaching, followed by a long line of pedestrians. It is the king, seen as usual only in the distance, returning to the palace, that large building standing out on the left of the gate with high tiled roof and balconies, decked with arras hangings. This was the old residence of the Aragonese kings, now the archiepiscopal palace. Behind it rises the Seo, with cupola disfigured by wooden acroteria. On the opposite side of the gate is seen the municipal consistory, connected with which is the Lonja (Exchange), recognized by its four corner towers, a grand pile completed in 1551. The site of the Pilar, the foundation stone of which was not laid till 1 686, is here occupied by the modest church of Sta. Maria la Mayor. Further east rises the famous leaning tower ( Torre nueva) of San Felipe, three hundred and twelve Castilian feet high, whose singular ornamentation commemorates the fact that Christians, Jews and Moors co-operated in its erection. Then follows San Pablo with its slender Gothic belfry, and lastly, beyond the town walls, the massive Moorish citadel of the Aljaferia, where St. Elizabeth of Portugal saw the light in 1271. Brick being here the only building material everything has a pale, dusty tone. Nothing can be imagined more dreary and inhospitable than these river banks, whose clayey bareness is unrelieved by a single tree. And here the artist has conjured up a motley company, whose picturesque Court and national costumes supply the place of flowery meads. Some groups linger below by the waterside ; but the chief persons are higher up, probably in the convent garden, shut off from the promenade by a wall with crumbling parapets. They are disposed some in groups, some (the ladies) seated on carpets spread out on the grass, or else are sauntering down to the landing-places. All whose faces are shown are portraits, some of which recall figures in the hunting- pieces and in the Louvre Group. On the left we notice a tall ecclesiastic, and very striking is the young blonde cavalier in a stiff red cloak standing apart and looking in the distance, horse and equerry not far off. The head had evidently been intentionally injured or effaced, and had to be repainted. In the left corner front is seated a trim fruit- woman in provincial garb (blue smock, broad white sleeves, a rose in her bosom) selling peaches. Of low-born persons mendicants alone enjoy the privilege of intruding on this company. Here we have the esprit of Callot, the truth and variety of Hogarth, and Van Dyck’s aristocratic air. Pamplona. 33 1 The picture thus consists of four sections disposed horizontally — the still, luminous sky, the expanse of grey houses, the dark green limpid stream, and its margin occupied by motley groups. To this stillness and gaiety is presented a contrast, one however which lies beyond the visible horizon, seen rather in the crowded memories of destructive floods in past years, of the present storms of war in the East, and of the former great- ness of the metropolis of the North Spanish kingdom. The decaying city with its modern visitors, the frivolous listless Court company of Philip IV., gives us a picture of times when States are founded and when States are lost. This scene, which was to be a souvenir of the crown prince’s brightest days, could not fail to awaken painful feelings in after times. Hence the painting, completed after his death, was never hung in the royal apart- ments, but relegated to the passages over the Treasury. In Palomino’s time it was in the gallery leading to the Encarnacion. The Fortress of Pamplona. A hitherto enigmatical painting, which assuredly owed its orgin to the same journey of the Court to the north, is now in Apsle} r House {Curtis, 6 1: "Landscape — a festival near a fortress, about 18 x 24 inches”). Here also we have a prospect, but one of a stronghold surrounded by lofty mountains; a royal procession in the mid-distance moving towards the gateway, and in front a festive company diversified with figures in provincial costume. Although Thore calls it a masterpiece, it is not by the hand of the master, but apparently a production of his school. It is painted on coarse canvas, and despite the crude application of the pig- ments the varied details of figures and landscape are characteristically determined and can be recognized. Now we learn from the inventory of 1686 that in the time of Charles II. a picture hung in the passage over the Treasury, representing “ the fortress of Pamplona, with landscape and many inhabitants of that district looking at the entry of Philip IV., with the arms of Navarra.” It was valued at four hundred doubloons, one hundred more than the view of Sara- gossa, and it was again seen by Cean Bermudez in the Cuarto del Rey of the new palace. It may possibly be still somewhere stowed away amongst the lumber of the Prado Gallery inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Anyhow this picture w T as four ells wide and nearly as high, con- 332 Velazquez. sequently it cannot be the work in Apsley House. In the latter also instead of the Navarrese arms we see above, within a heavy wreath of flowers and fruits, a shield with wheel supported by two cherubs. Hence this can only be either a first sketch or a reduced replica. The work had its origin in the king’s visit to Pamplona in the spring of 1646 to hold the Cortes of Navarra, at which homage was to be paid to the crown prince after confirmation of the statutes of the kingdom, and requisition made for a contribution of three hundred men and money. As the requisition had been refused by the stubborn Navarrese “ Home Rulers,” Philip, as related by the Venetian envoy, had returned in anger to Saragossa the day after the act of homage. Then this picture was painted as a memento of one of the last incidents in the life of Don Balthasar. We learn further from a document in the palace archives ( Museum Catalogue , 443) that Don Francisco Borgia had recommended for the purpose the painter Mazo, who was to receive two hundred crowns travelling expenses in order to proceed to Pamplona and “ paint the view of that city and citadel.” On the picture itself, however, we see the citadel alone, which stood in the south-east over against the St. Nicholas Gate, on the spot where the basilica of St. Ignatius Loyola was consecrated in the year 1694. For it was here that the Guipuzcoan hidalgo, Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde, had received the memorable wound, on recovering from which he exchanged the sword for the cowl, and became the founder of the Order of the Jesuits. Here is unfolded the view of a broad river valley some seven miles in circumference, with a triple coronet of lofty hills, which are wooded on the right, and on the left fall abruptly with rugged ravined slopes. Beyond a saddle-back miles away there still towers a blue mountain range. Within the stout ramparts and flooded moats of the stronghold the ground is laid out with garden plots and some scattered houses, while close to the ditch on the left a path leads to the main gateway in the centre. Along this track two coaches, one a six- the other a four- in-hand, are driving between dense rows of spectators. The foreground is occupied by an animated motley throng, conspicuous amongst whom is a circle of eighteen ladies and gentlemen on the left, linked with pocket-handkerchiefs and dancing a “ merry-go-round.” It was the custom for ladies to dance in gloved hands except with the king, and princesses with grandees in the manner here represented. Further in front is a gentleman, perhaps the crown prince, in red doublet and plumed hat, mounted on a prancing horse, and surrounded The Conversation 333 by seven others in black Court dress, four of them bareheaded. In the centre of the foreground are three ladies seated on the grass, and round about women in the Navarrese costume, with white tocas like the head- dress worn by the Roman campagnuole. The Conversation. No words need be wasted to show that the choice work depicting a collection of thirteen Spanish cavaliers full-length, now in the Louvre , 1 does not represent so many Spanish painters, as is often assumed. It can scarcely even be regarded as an independent work at all, or as the sketch for a pendant, for instance, to some group of Dutch sharpshooters. It is rather a collection of studies for groups of spectators suitable for such works as the View of Saragossa and the royal hunting parties, unless it be the fragment of some large painting that has disappeared. GROUP OF CAVALIERS. A couple are distinctly seen turning towards the background, one of them waving his hat, the only manifestation of feeling betrayed by any of the assembly. Another, on the left, has just stepped up to those two distinguished persons, one of whom places his hand confidentially on his shoulder, and explains the state of affairs. The majority, however, some 1 This little work was presented by Don Gabriel, son of Charles III., to the Duchess of Alba. After passing through several hands it was acquired for the Louvre by Laneuville for six thousand five hundred francs in 1851. 334 Velazquez. seven or eight, turn their backs on the spectacle, as in some of the hunting scenes, and take the opportunity of exchanging ideas or passing remarks on the actors in the arena. Even when out of hearing, we do not willingly face the subject of our comments. The grouping of this leisurely company seems to be carefully studied, although the general connection of the five several circles is loose enough. No one troubles himself about his neighbours in the other groups, which are figured at varying though slight distances in the perspective. A gradual falling off in social rank may be noticed in the direction from left to right, those on the left mostly wearing their hats, and conducting themselves more listlessly ; these are also more elderly persons. The picture is an authentic document on the subject of good manners and the becoming demeanour of well-bred Spaniards on such public occasions, where each individual regarded himself as the cynosure of all eyes. Hence this seeming indifference, this ignoring of others, who are none the less carefully considered in every gesture, glance, and attitude. The fourth figure from the left takes the pose in which the king had himself frequent!}' painted. Quite similar groups of courtiers, which however cannot be mere studies for larger works, occur in two small pictures, that are said to have come originally from the Madrid Alcazar. They are not mentioned in the royal inventories ; but Stirling-Maxwell (iii., 1408) states that they were brought to England by Mr. Bourke, Danish Minister to Spain, about the year 1814, and were exhibited by him at the British Institu- tion in 1816. At present they are in the Marquis of Lansdowne’s country seat, Bowood, Wilts. 1 Here the scenery is not a park, but a rural district, although the figures instead of wearing hunting or travelling garb, appear in gorgeous Court costumes. They are merely portraits, and evidently in very studied situations. How greatly would their charm be enhanced, did we but possess the clue to the incident ! The first group transports us to a broad glen, with a slope on the left caused by erosion of the surface soil ; here is seated a woman with a child on the grass. In the distance rises an imposing summit in irregular lines, while to the right the landscape merges behind some dark brushwood in an expanse like a marine surface. In the green glen two rivers meet. A cavalier in deep red doublet and hose with wide 1 Curtis, 53, 54; Waagen Treasures iii., 164. The Conversation. 335 slashed yellow sleeves, mounted on a stout black horse, rides straight from the background towards a second awaiting him on a bay piebald animal, and wearing a light blue doublet. A third on foot in the foreground to the right in a wide leather doublet and riding-boots has placed his plumed hat on a large stone in front. In the second and richer picture we see beyond the mead a shady valley with sparkling streaks of water ; in the middle a mountain range with a deep saddle-back, at the foot of which is a town, and in the distance a blue crest. In the middle of the field an aristocratic lady is seated on the grass. She wears a rough grey-green wrap, which serves the purpose of our modern dust-cloaks, for underneath we catch sight of the flaming red gown with wide gold braid. Her head is enveloped in a black man- tilla ; in her right hand she holds an unfurled fan, while the left is coquettishly withdrawing the mantilla from one eye, thus letting a ray of light fall on this corner of the face. The glance is directed towards the cavalier to the right, who is addressing her, and who wears a pale red doublet with wide falling lace collar ; his left hand, holding a pair of long yellow gauntlets, rests on his sword-belt. Near this chief figure a second young cavalier, in a stiff blue cloak and top-boots, stands somewhat aside, looking straight out of the canvas. Behind the young lady is seated an elderly dame in dark costume, a duena, towards whom an elderly cavalier holds out his hand. He is wrapped in a loose brown mantle, and his strongly wrinkled olive- coloured features interest us despite their ugliness. That the lady belongs to the Court is evident from the figures of two Court dwarfs in loud motley gala dress on her left. The nino de coria showing his plump figure from behind, wears a blue smock with wide silver trimmings, fiery red slashed trunk-hose and sleeves to match. His head is turned directly towards the lady, at whom he points with a jeer. Beside him is his comrade, no taller but more shapely, laying his hand condescendingly on the other’s shoulder. Fie wears doublet and hose of a yellow brocaded fabric. In the mid-distance is still another slightly sketched group. That these scenes originated in the Court of Philip IV. is beyond question. The name of Velazquez will occur to everybody, but chiefly, no doubt, because the figures belong to types represented by him. A closer examination raises many doubts, and the transparent grey tone of the landscape, the outlines of the mountains, the somewhat scanty foliage are certainly suspicious. The elegant, party-coloured figures in a light 336 Velazquez. hazy landscape treated with glazing suggest the name of Wouwerman. Mention has also been made of that famous Dutchman Terborch, who had been to Madrid and painted at the Court, although nothing of his has ever yet turned up there. Both pictures have been enlarged on all sides, but most above, and the marks of the original square frame running close to the groups are still quite perceptible. The painting, however, has been uniformly retouched, and is now covered with tiny cracks, apparently in consequence of repainting by another and later hand which had for its object to render these sketches suitable for public galleries. 1 1 The Landscape in The Hague Gallery (No. 258) is wrongly ascribed by Thore to Velazquez. SIXTH BOOK. THE SECOND JOURNEY TO ROME. 1649-1651. OCCASION OF THE JOURNEY — PICTURE-DEALING IN VENICE — NAPLES IN 1649 — ROME IN 1650 — VELAZQUEZ’ RELATIONS TO THE ROMAN ARTISTS — JUAN DE PAREJA INNOCENT X. — THE ANTIQUES — METELLI AND COLONNA. 22 I Occasion of the Journey. FIRST visit to Rome never fails to leave a yearning to return, at least amongst those worthy of entering the Eternal City. The second visit is then also not seldom the most enjoyable and profitable. Such a yearning, possibly combined with the anticipation of here still enjoying some of the most brilliant and eventful days of his life, drew our artist, now in his fiftieth year, once more to the land where, two decades previously, he had experienced the delight in store for contemplative minds amid the Art and antiquities of Rome, in the freedom of a place where everything is pervaded by an air of grandeur. That first trip had had study mainly for its object ; the second was at least officially a business affair, although the secret motive was doubtless the desire to revisit the scenes now endeared to him. Under the improved relations of Spain with the papacy, he may have also perhaps wished to establish a more friendly footing with the Roman Court and society, and present himself as a perfected artist in that great arena of all talents. The mission, which served as the pretext for his long conge , was connected with his present official position as director of the works undertaken to partly rebuild the Madrid Alcazar. Of late years several old apartments had been fitted up afresh and some splendid additions made. Their pictorial embellishments could scarcely be entrusted to natives, especially since the names of two decorative painters, just then very popular in Italy, had reached Madrid. Fresh Art treasures were also needed for the new apartments, some of which were now being converted into a veritable Pinakothek ; and as for such treasures Madrid was a very humble market, compared with Venice and Rome, Velazquez readily undertook to procure them in Italy. In March 1647 he had been appointed inspector and paymaster of the works connected with the octagonal apartment over the main entrance and new flight of steps, where the "Old Tower” had been pulled down. For 340 Velazquez. the adornment of this as well as of other apartments, statues, casts from the antique, bronzes and the like were needed quite as much as paintings. Hence the purchase of such plastic works naturally came within the scope of his mission to Italy. It has been suggested that the main object of the journey was to procure the materials required for a projected “ Royal Academy” of painters. But this suggestion, for it is nothing more, probably rests on the circumstance that certain casts after Velazquez’ modelling subse- quent!} found their way to the academy founded by Philip V. According to Jusepe Martinez such an institution had already been proposed in the time of Philip III. by Carducho, at whose advice the painters of the capital had drawn up a memorial embodying a series of statutes. On the accession of Philip IV. the project was again discussed, and encouraged by Olivares. A programme had been framed, embracing lectures, prizes, diplomas ; but its realization, which had been also'favoured by the Castilian Cortes, fell through owing to the “ discordant views ” of the painters themselves. Velazquez left Madrid in November 1648, and as war was still raging in Catalonia and the plague was rife in Alicante, Valencia and Seville, he embarked at Malaga on January 2, 1649. The sea voyage was not free from danger, owing especially to the French privateers, who the next year captured a Spanish ship with Don Juan’s secretary and despatches of the nunzio on the route between Alicante and Genoa. Our artist joined the suite of the Spanish envoy, who was proceeding to Trent to receive the new queen, Mariana of Austria. Landing on February nth at Genoa, Velazquez again passed on without delay through Milan and Padua to Venice, tarrying only in the Lombard capital long enough to give a hasty glance to Leonardo’s Last Supper and some of the churches. Picture-dealing in Venice. Amongst the distinguished persons of all nationalities, who at that time visited Venice as one of the gayest cities in Europe, there were not a few provided with the means of purchasing paintings. For this “ com- modity ” the “Queen of the Adriatic” was the chief mart, amongst other reasons because in the seventeenth century the Venetian school itself held the foremost place in general estimation. Resides Italian and foreign artists, the European potentates, Charles I. of England, Philip IV., Ferdinand II. of Tuscany, Christina of Sweden, the Archduke Leopold William, were all eager to secure specimens of this school. Picture-dealing in Venice. 34i Some reigning princes even personally visited the place, amongst them Duke Francis II. of Modena (1648), Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick (1656), the Marquis Charles II. of Mantua (1660). The Dutch painter, Daniel Beck, came as agent for the Swedish queen, giving out that she had some lofty plans in view. Rumours were afloat of two painters about to be sent by the emperor ; and in his poem dedicated to the Archduke Leopold, Marco Boschini speaks of the hunters coming from all quarters, spreading out their nets, and spending gold lavishly in order to carry off “ our gems.” But if Velazquez fancied one had only to appear in the market with a long purse in order to get the first offer of works by Titian or Veronese, he was soon undeceived. The wares did not wait for buyers, but on the contrary buyers had to wait very patiently for the wares. Scarcely a single historical piece by Titian was any longer to be had, though a portrait turned up now and then, fetching one hundred doubloons or so if the hands were shown. The picture of a doge, perhaps Landi (ob. x 545 ), was the chief attraction in the Senator Landi’s collection, which was bought by the Widmans for three thousand two hundred ducats in 1656. In order to pick up bargains it was necessary to be on the spot, or else to be represented by some thoroughly experienced agent, half connoisseur, half dealer, who could be on the look-out for the good things thrown on the market by the pecuniary difficulties of a nobleman, the secularization of a convent, the caprices of an abbess or a cure ; a person in the con- fidence of the Art Shylocks, and not above accompanying them in disguise through the halls of some ancient palace. The chronicles tell us little of the countless “knowing ones,” who were always discovering apocryphal Leonardos, Correggios, Holbeins, Giorgiones. The great Pietro da Cortona himself on one occasion bought a sham Veronese for Cardinal Bichi. But whoever possessed a really wideawake representative in Venice might doubtless with princely means in twenty years or so scrape together a princely collection. Such brokers were Niccolo Rinieri, owner of some fine Veroneses and Bassanos ; and Paolo del Sera, a wealthy trader and collector, who had a house on the Grand Canal, and who had taken lessons in painting from Prete Genovese. He was agent for Ferdinand II. of Tuscany, and whenever anything choice had to be parted with he had always the first offer “in the strictest confidence.” But strangers rarely presented themselves who were able to come to terms with these men. Sera, as he said himself, wanted a king’s ransom for his “ Old Curiosity Shop,” and he received it from Archduke Leopold. Shortly before Velaz- quez ’ arrival one of Vincenzo Grimani Calerge’s three sons and heirs sold 342 Velazquez. to a Genoese a trapestry, after a cartoon by Raphael, for which the Earl of Arundel had previously offered ten thousand ducats. Of paintings purchased by our master Palomino specifies four, the best doubtless being a Venus and Adonis by Veronese, who had several times treated that subject; it is now in the Prado (No. 526). Others were two works in distemper, scenes from the life of Christ, one the Healing of the Blind Man, “ a marvel of Art,” which he did not venture to expose to the risk of transport. Of works of Tintoretto he brought back, besides the Conversion of Paul (?), a ceiling-piece from the history of Moses, representing the Purification of the Daughters of the Midianites (No. 415), and lastly a Gloria abounding in figures (No. 428), a finished sketch of Tintoretto's chief work in the Gran Consiglio. Boschini, who on this occasion made Velazquez’ acquaintance, and who describes him as the mirror of a distinguished and courteous cavalier, tells us that the last-mentioned was his most cherished prize. The poet met him one day in the ducal palace lost 4 rr" admiration of the artistic grouping and animation of the figures in this stupendous work. “ This picture alone,” he declared, “would suffice to immortalize that painter; it seems like the labour of a generation.” Boschini tells us further that Velazquez laid out altogether twelve thousand crowns for five paintings ; but besides the Paradise, he men- tions two Titians and two Veroneses. It seemed rather poor gleanings ; but “ there was nothing further to be had.” Nevertheless Velazquez showed sound judgment enough, when he assured the king before leaving Madrid that, if sent to Italy, he would be able to secure some of the best things “ by Titian, Paolo Veronese, Bassano, Raphael, Parmigiano and the like. For there are few princes who possess pictures by these masters, and least of all to such an extent as Your Majesty shall acquire through my zeal.” 1 But unfortunately he arrived too soon, as appeared from the records of the Venetian picture market for the next few years. Thus some of the first masterpieces were unexpectedly offered for sale in 1657, when the republic, with the consent of Pope Alexander VII., suppressed the religious Orders of the Crociferi and the Holy Ghost, sequestrating their estates to defray the expenses of the Turkish war. Amongst these masterpieces were Titian's Descent of the Holy Ghost and Tintoretto’s Marriage of Cana (1561), a wonder of golden light full of the most lovely female heads. Even before the publication of the bull dissolving the Crociferi, this work, which hung in their refectory, was 1 Jusepe Martinez: Discursos practicables, p. 1 1 8. Naples in 1649. 343 secretly offered for sale to the Florentine Court (March 1656). The provincial, however (Pater Barbaro), wanted four thousand silver crowns, whereas the grand duke would not bid higher than fifteen hundred piastres, and meantime the bull appeared followed by the intervention of the republic. Ultimately Tintoretto’s Marriage Feast was secured for the Salute. Naples in 1649. Scarcely had Velazquez reached Rome when he had to start for Naples in order to present his letters of recommendation to the viceroy, Count Ohate. In these letters the viceroy was instructed to further in every way the objects of his journey, and a notice in Passeri’s Lives of the Painters (p. 2 67) throws some light on the nature of those objects. They had reference more especially to certain plaster castings and some bronzes after the antique, and as these objects were not despatched to Madrid till 1652, it is probable that Velazquez had not to prepare the castings, but only to select the antiques from which they were taken. On this occasion he renewed his acquaintance with Jusepe Ribera. Twenty years had elapsed since their first meeting, twenty years which for both had been the greater and more fruitful half of their artistic career. What a series of creations had been despatched from Ribera’s studio to distant lands during those two decades ! There was the great Immaculate Conception executed in 1635 for Monterey, followed in 1637 by the incomparable. Pieta for San Martino, a work before which, as an embodiment of the solemn majesty of grief, all similar representations of the century sink to mere theatrical spectacles. Then had come the stimulating times, when Domenichino appeared on the scene, in order to teach the Neapolitans what monumental, painting meant. Ribera, who was no fresco painter, made no attempt to rival him in this department. Nevertheless he desired to show that he too had at his command what those North Italians regarded as a monopoly of their grand style. It was then (1643) that he painted the Holy Family with St. Catharine for Genoa, now in Stratton Park. It is a genial family group, in which both women, drawn with a delicacy and nobility of outline, breathe a spirit of grandeur, grace and subdued fervour that cause us reluctantly to tear ourselves from the picture. Next year Ribera received the Cross of the papal Order of Christ, and in 1646 he was gratified with the commission to paint one of the altar-pieces for the Chapel of the Tesoro, an honour much coveted by contemporary artists. The subject was the Martyrdom of St. Gennaro, a work which stands here as an eloquent monument over against 344 Velazquez. Domenichino’s feeble performances aloft in the lunettes of the cupola. His opponents had here expected a gloomy execution scene, and he gave them a glorified, calmly triumphant figure, a poem in light and colour. But the fates, which had steadfastly befriended Ribera for well-nigh thirty years, had now in store for him a crushing blow. He had two charming daughters, the same whose features we so often meet in his pictures of holy women. Maria Rosa, the younger, was then in the full bloom of her beauty, and so lately as 1646 he had used her as his model for a very large painting of the Conception destined for the high altar of the new church in the Convent of Sta. Isabella in Madrid. The following year witnessed the revolt headed by Masaniello, when Philip’s natural son, Don Juan de Austria II., was sent to Italy. During his busy life in Naples Don Juan made the acquaintance of Ribera, who painted his equestrian portrait anti- multiplied it by an etching (1648). But his first and last contact with a member of the ruling dynasty proved fatal for the Spanish artist. From his native land he had never expected any boon, and years before had expressed himself to that effect. u Spain,” he was wont to say, “ is a tender mother for strangers, but a hard stepmother for her own children.” Hence his determination never to quit Naples, acting on the Spanish maxim: Quien estd bien no se mueva (“ Let well alone ”). But now Maria Rosa fell a victim to the seductive wiles of Don Juan, who removed her to a nunnery in Palermo. The grief of the stern father is said to have bordered on despair. He cursed himself, for his vanity had been the occasion of his daughter’s being thrown with the young prince, whom Ribera had once ventured to invite to an evening enter- tainment. According to the local tradition he now withdrew to a country house at Posilippo, whence he soon after disappeared. His paintings, however, bearing his signature down to the year 1652, as well as this visit of Velazquez, make it evident that he survived the catastrophe at all events a few years. The works dating from this period betray a maturity of finish and a depth of feeling, which show that his mental powers had not been impaired by sorrow. The St. Sebastian in the Naples Museum is the last and most glorified replica of this theme so often treated by him ; but here the transfiguration takes place after death. In the Shepherds now in the Louvre he seems to have sought consolation in his affliction by giving the features of his lost daughter to the Virgin gazing heavenwards. Then came the song of the dying swan, his Last Supper in San Martino, richest in figures and most artistic of all his compositions. Here his youthful impressions of Titian’s glorious colouration are again revived, Rome in 1650. 345 combined with an expression of sacramental devotion unrivalled in its truth and depth of feeling, in the dignity and solemnity of the attitudes. A daughter, issue of the unhallowed union, obtained admission to the Royal Convent of Barefoot Nuns in Madrid, where so many ladies of the House of Habsburg lived and died. Rome in 1650. Velazquez entered the Eternal City on the eve of the Universal Jubilee, which, thanks to the restoration of peace, was more numerously attended than usual. Amongst the swarms of pilgrims that flocked to Rome on this occasion, besides princes and nobles, there were also many sinister figures, who after the suppression of the Masaniello riots had passed into the Papal States, thence occasionally raiding into Neapolitan territory. A band had even for a time pitched their tents in the Coliseum, while others found refuge in the palace of the French ambassadors, who also extended their right of asylum over the neighbouring houses. Here were lodged hundreds of these “ Masanielli,” as they were called ; and Cardinal Barberini, who in 1648 had introduced the first French wigs into Rome, was now dubbed 11 principe di Casa Masaniello. Then the fury of the Roman populace was fanned by the Spanish enlisting agents, who with the sanction of the government carried on their operations in a high-handed way. They even fell upon the pilgrims ; but the peasantry with their silver-ferruled staves were a sturdy race, and when a troop of these pious folk were on one occasion attacked in the Piazza San Pietro, with the aid of the populace they overpowered the recruiting officers, and carried them off to prison. Thereupon Don Pasquino uttered the threat : “ Rome also produces its ' Masanielli.’ ” In short, the Holy City was a classic land for the study of military subjects. The Italian national sentiment had altogether been deeply stirred by the Neapolitan outbreak, and just their the position of the Spaniards in Rome was none of the pleasantest. The pope himself was at heart a good Italian. During the Venetian contest with the papacy he once exclaimed : “ It is impossible for the ecclesiastics ever to forget their duty to their country; the voice of Nature is too strong. We have ourselves experienced it in our own person : when, on our arrival from Spain, we entered this city by night, we hastened to throw open our palace window, in order at the sight of the Piazza Navona and of Pasquino 1 to enjoy the return to our fatherland.” 1 The famous torso named after Pasquino, the tailor, stands at the converging point of two streets opening on the Piazza. 34-6 Velazquez. This pope had censured as impolitic and inhuman the sanguinary repressive measures of Don Juan of Austria, and the very force of circumstances generally alienated him from the Spanish party. The sight of the envoy, first of the Portuguese clergy, and then of the “ Tyrant,” (that is, John IV. cf Braganza), driving down the Corso had filled the Spaniards with sullen rage, which presently found vent in bloody brawls. Even at Court they were regarded with feelings akin to hatred. The Spanish agent Ameyden, questioned as to the character of the Duke of Arcos by the prelates and cavaliers assembled in the ante-chamber during that ambassador’s first audience, answered that he was “ clean of hands, a justice ( Justiciero , as the people had called Peter the Cruel), and courteous.” “Oh! as to that,” he had to hear in reply, “other Spanish ministers had occasionally been seen of clean hands and just, but courteous never !' 1 A copper-plate lies before us by the Marseillese Dominique Barriere in the taste of Callot, which vividly illustrates an event that occurred in this year 1650, and in which Velazquez himself may well be supposed to have taken a leading part. It represents the feast held at dawn on April 17, Easter Sunday, by the Confraternity of the Glorious Resurrection, founded in 1579, and comprising the Spanish colony in Rome presided over by the ambassador and Ferdinand Brandano, oficial mayor of the papal secretariat , of whom Velazquez made a portrait. The perspective shows the whole of the Piazza Navona seen from the south-east corner. This most characteristic of Roman squares, used as a market since 1477, owes its present conformation to Pope Innocent X., who was born on the spot, and who here erected the Palazzo Pamfili with the contiguous church and the obelisk, the latter bearing the date 1651. These constitute the more solid architectural features amid the varied festive scenes, temporary triumphal arches, processions, fireworks, and illumina- tions figured on the engraving. The Jubilee had also caused a stir in Art circles. For some time back great efforts were being made to have everything ready for the in- augurations and unveilings that were to take place on this occasion. Fore- most amongst these was the interior of St. Giovanni Laterano modernized by Borromini, of whom it was boasted that, without touching sustaining walls, ground plan or hallowed memorials of the past, he had made this basilica so much more pleasing, richer and lighter than before. Prince Ludovisi also managed to get completed the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola with Algardi’s facade. St. Peter’s had received its marble pavement, the 1 Diario di Ameyden, January 25, 1646. Rome in 1650. 347 marble dressing of its side aisles and other embellishments. Lastly, the Campidoglio Museum was opened in accordance with Michael Angelo’s original design for the new Capitol. In other respects the economic times of the Pamfili were rather “ years of dearth” for the Art world, which sorely missed the liberality and fostering hand of the Barberini. Doubtless Innocent X.’s nephew, Camillo, who had been a cardinal for a twelvemonth, and had then married Olimpia Aldobrandini, the richest heiress in Rome, gave painters and sculptors more than enough to do ; but he was a bad paymaster, and had even gone to law with Mola over a disputed fee. All the suggestions for projected works came from his mother, who held the strings of the papal purse with a tight hand. Hence foremost amongst these projects were those associated with the glorification of the Pamfili family, the Piazza Navona with its palace, church and fountain, and the Villa Bel Respiro on the Janiculum, the finest and largest gardens of the century. Doubtless the pope himself now and then showed a lively interest and sound judgment in matters of Art ; but he cared as little for painters as he did for men of letters. He was wont to remark that he disliked having to do with painters, at whose hands he had never experienced aught but annoyance and deception. Velazquez’ Relations to the Roman Artists. In the Roman Art circles even then all imaginable types were represented — Bohemians, fops, idealists, and “Odd Fellows.” In Passeri’s Lives we see them not only at work in the studio, but going about their daily pursuits, and seem to hear their very voices. Amongst the foremost were such “ melancholy Jaques” as the unhappy Pietro Testa, II Lucchesino (born at Lucca 1617), whose body was found in the Tiber on Ash Wednesday of the Jubilee year — a spirited etcher, but no painter; the uneducated and greedy Michael Angelo Cerquozzi (born 1602), battle and genre painter; the Roman Angelo Caroselli, who imitated Caravaggio to the life, who conducted himself like a lazzarone, and who painted his highly finished pieces in the society of buxom wenches. Guercino, who also strictly speaking belonged to this category, had long withdrawn to his retreat at Cento, where commissions from all parts had to follow him. The transition to the next group is formed by the swaggerers and fire-eaters, such as the sculptor Francesco Baratta of Maissa, who was at that time jointly engaged with Claude Adam (eldest of this family of 348 Velazquez. French sculptors) and two Italians on the four colossal river-gods for the fountain in the Piazza Navona. Then came the Court painters and cavaliers, who, like Algardi, strutted or rode through the streets with decorations on doublet and cloak, and rapier dangling at their side. Such were Matteo Preti, Lorenzo Bernini, and the great fresco painters. These looked with scorn on cabinet painters, whose productions circulated among the second-hand dealers, mere dilettanti and tavern painters. Amid these motley groups there still lingered in solitary grandeur some high priests, worshippers of the beautiful and of classic antiquity, such as Poussin and the excellent Francis du Quesnoy, whose Susanna, pace Winckelmann, is a more charming example of “ imitation of Greek works ” than many executed in accordance with the precepts of this great Art teacher. In Salvator Rosa there is something of all these three classes. Our Spanish Court painter and royal agent can scarcely have had much to do with any except those greater cosmopolitan celebrities. Those mentioned by Palomino as associates of Velazquez are without exception representatives of the modern style of movement and bravura. He may have already met in Madrid the Cavaliere Calabrese, the best travelled of contemporary painters, who by his thirtieth year had already visited Spain, Paris, and the Low Countries, who had made the acquaintance of Rubens, and since 1642 had been a Knight of St. John. Hearing in Venice of Lanfranco’s death (1647), he hastened to Rome to compete for the frescoes in St. Andrea della Valle left unfinished by him. But although he carried off the first prize offered by the Academy of St. Luke, Calabrese failed in St. Andrea, because he was so ill-advised by Cortona as to attempt to outstrip Domenichino’s frescoes in magnitude. Later he wanted to revisit Rome in order to pass the sponge over those fiascos. The Madrid Palace already possessed of him the Water from the Rock and the Infancy of the Baptist, now in the Prado (Nos. 343, 344). Pietro Berettini of Cortona had adorned two apartments in the Pamfili Palace with scenes from the AUncid, which were much lauded and even made the subjects of Flemish tapestries. An anagram was formed from his name which read “ Corona de' pittori ,” and d’Argenville called him the greatest painter produced by Tuscany. In the time of Charles II. there was a Combat of Gladiators by him in Buen Retiro, and the National Museum still possesses his Feast of the Lupercalia (No. 14 1 )- Velazquez also found here the aged Nicholas Poussin, who in November, 1642, had returned to Rome, henceforth his true home. In the interval since Velazquez’ last visit he had sent works to Madrid, and Philip IV. Algardi. 349 possessed a Purification of the Temple and a St. Laurence by him, which appear to have been lost. All the other Poussins now in the Museum date only from the time of the Bourbon dynasty. In 1650 he was engaged on a Healing of the Man blind from Birth, and on that glorious portrait of himself (Louvre, No. 426), with which he was occupied altogether two years. This very summer he sent it to his patron, M. de Chantelou, together with a copy for his friend Pointel executed by himself. The Bolognese Alessandro Algardi (born 1602) patronized by the Pamfili, was a person of stately presence, amiable and accommodating, jovial and combative. This year 1650 was the culminating point of his career. The bronze statue of Innocent X. on the Capitol, which he had wrested from the hands of Mocchi, the portraits in the refectory of Trinita dei Pellegrini founded to commemorate the foot-washing of the Jubilee pilgrims, and in the loggia of the Palazzo Gonfaloniere in Bologna ; the busts of the pope’s brother Benedetto and of Olimpia in the Doria Gallery, are all by the hand of Algardi, whose early death (1654) was deeply regretted by Innocent. But Algardi’s most admired production was the Leo I. and Attila for the altar of St. Leo in St. Peter’s, the grandest relief of later sculpture, in the execution of which in marble his associate Domenico Guidi had a large share. Philip IV. received a silver cast after the original model, which was set in an architectural mounting of gilt-bronze and lapis lazuli , the whole resting on a lion. The part played by Velazquez in connection with this and other works prepared by Algardi for the Madrid Court can only be conjectured. The Bolognese sculptor may possibly have been consulted by him in the choice of the antiques, after which castings were to be taken, and the same artist may have supplied him with many objects suited for the new apartments in the Alcazar. Algardi’s last works were the four chimney-pieces for the king, the wax models for which he finished, and which were cast by Domenico Guidi and Ercole Ferrata. But the chief event in this Art circle was the restoration of Lorenzo Bernini to Court favour. The death of his patron Urban VIII. had been the signal for the storm by which the architect of St. Peter's had long been threatened, the immediate pretext being the defective structure of one of the clock towers, which had to be pulled down. But, thanks to his buoyant nature, he survived this disgrace and occupied himself with the lovely statue of Truth, like a Rubens in marble, while watching the opportunity to triumph over his enemies. This opportunity came in connection with the removal (1648) of the obelisk formerly in Caracalla’s Circus from Capo di Bove to the Piazza 35 ° Velazquez. Navona to form the central piece of the new fountain. Innocent was so delighted with Bernini’s competitive design for this monumental work, with its four river-gods personifying the eternal flow of life and water, that he declared it impossible to dispense with this artist’s services, adding : “ One must not look at his designs unless one is prepared to adopt them.” A gilt-bronze group after the original model, but surmounted by the Spanish arms, was presented to Philip, who also received a cast of Bernini’s earlier work, the David in the Villa Borghese, besides his Head of Seneca, a study after the antique, and the large bronze crucifix for the chapel in the Alcazar. As this remarkable genius was also one of the most admired portraitists amongst contemporary sculptors, one would gladly like to know something of his relations with Velazquez. Although both were children of the same epoch, the difference in their character and natural bent was fundamental — one a phlegmatic, formal Spaniard, a calm observer averse from applause and incapable of courting popularity, the other a fiery, ambitious Neapolitan, a man of glowing fancy and restless activity, striving after ever new and unheard-of effects. We may fancy how Bernini extolled that portrait in the Doria Palace with characteristic hyperbole, and how Velazquez expressed his hearty agreement with the sculptor’s views on portraiture. Bernini held that Nature lacked no charm needing the supplemental hand of Art ; that Nature knew how to endow the several parts each with its own beauty ; that for the artist the question was to recognize these beauties each in its place. He strove to discover in each subject its characteristic qualities, those qualities that Nature had imparted to no others. Thus he created those wonderful heads of popes, in which we fancy we detect a spirit akin to Velazquez' last style. The resemblance lies in the consummate command of the material of their respective Arts, in the animation and breadth of treatment, in the intensely \ivid yet supremely free characterization of the individual. Later such qualities in plastic portraiture were continually on the wane, and most of all in the period of the so-called renaissance of that Art, as appears nowhere more depressingly than in St. Peter’s. At that time Salvator Rosa was amongst the chief celebrities of Rome, unquestionably the most romantic figure of the contemporary Art world. His house on Monte Pincio was the resort of princes and prelates, and not a member of the Sacred College but had shown himself there once or again. If he walked abroad of an evening, behold him surrounded by a throng of admirers — poets, musicians, and singers of the first rank ; for the great man’s nod was an honour eagerly sought by all. Salvator Rosa. 35i Nevertheless it was an open secret that on the report of Masaniello’s insurrection he had hastened to Naples ; nor had he ever concealed his strong patriotic sentiment, a circumstance which may have obliged the Spanish Court painter to avoid his society. It is noteworthy in this connection that in the Madrid inventories of the seventeenth century amongst so many Neapolitan works there is not a single painting by Salvator Rosa. Yet this master’s landscapes and battle-pieces must have greatly interested Velazquez, even though he may have smiled at Rosa’s conceit that he was a great historical painter and that those other things of his were merely passing fancies. The Spaniard, who preferred to be the first amongst subordinate painters than second amongst the foremost,” never attempted anything beyond his powers ; the Neapolitan, blinded by his vanity, exposed himself to public derision by historical pieces, whose heroes and saints were mostly malignant fiends demeaning themselves like bad actors and painted like straw puppets. That the two artists were acquainted with one another seems evident from the conversation recorded by Boschini which if not verbally may at least be substantially correct. Here Velazquez, questioned by Rosa as to his opinion of Raphael, whether he did not consider him still the best, after all the good and the beautiful he had seen in Italy, is made to reply with a somewhat ceremonious shake of the head : “ Raphael, to be plain with you, for I like to be candid and outspoken, does not please me at all.” Whereupon Salvator remarked : “ In that case there can apparently be nobody in Italy to your taste, for to him we yield the crown.” But Don Diego retorted : “ In Venice are found the good and the beautiful ; to their brush I give the first place ; it is Titian that bears the banner.” . This sentiment is in accord with the painter’s two visits to Venice, his studies, purchases, and affinity with that school. He and Raphael were in a certain sense antipodes. With Raphael the bias was so decidedly towards draughtsmanship, that he might be supposed to be better understood from his drawings than from his paintings. But of Velazquez we possess extremely few drawings, and those hasty. At the same time Raphael may still be duly appreciated and even loved by those who may be unwilling to accept him as a model. Here, however, Velazquez seems to speak of him harshly, asserting that he thought nothing of him. Were this so we should regret it for Velazquez’ sake. But he may have possibly expressed himself somewhat differently, or Salvator may have understood him too much in his own sense, and 35 2 Velazquez. may have even himself quite well uttered these words. Passeri, whose acquaintance with Rosa was of long standing, tells us (p. 434) that he spoke of Paolo Veronese more than of any others, and that the Venetian style was altogether according to his heart. On the other hand his relations to Raphael were not specially sympathetic, as was the case with most Neapolitans, who thought Sanzio "stony and dry." It is further to be noted that Velazquez speaks, not of Raphael’s grace and expression, nor yet of his drawing, but of his technique, giving the preference in this respect to the Venetian process. His incisive language seems influenced by the spirit of contention, perhaps by way of protest against the prevalent " Sanzio-mania ’’ of the times. Raphael was probably at no time more studied and glorified than during the seventeenth century, especially in Rome, although the fact may not always be evident from the productions of that period. In the sixteenth century he was overshadowed by Michael Angelo, in the eighteenth by the classical spirit, while at present he interests Art students and the emotional public alone. Juan de Pareja. When his Holiness announced his intention of granting a sitting to Velazquez, the master felt the necessity of preparing himself, and getting his hand, as it were, again into working order. Prevenirse is the term used by Palomino, and it is probable enough that he had not handled the brush since leaving Madrid, being mostly busy with picture-dealers, brokers, owners, curators, stucco-casters, and sculptors. Nothing is more detrimental to creative Art than much inspection and discussion about works of Art. In short he wished to make a preliminary trial, and the "corpus vile” he found opportunely at hand in his servant and colour- grinder, the Morisco Juan de Pareja. The trial may have been all the more needed that he would have to deal with a specially repulsive subject. The Italians apply the same word, olivaslro, both to the pope’s complexion and to the colour of this portrait of Pareja. When finished he sent the picture by the hand of the original himself to some friends to have their opinion on its merits. They beheld text and copy with amazement, "doubting which they should address, from which receive answer.’’ The painter Andreas Schmidt, at that time in Rome, afterwards related in Madrid that w r hen it was taken with other good paintings, old and new, to adorn the cloisters of the Pantheon on the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19, 1650), as was at that time customary, " it met with such universal approbation that in the 353 J UAN DE PAREJA. unanimous opinion of the painters of various nationalities, all else seemed painting, this alone truth. In recognition of this, Velazquez became a Roman Academician in the same year, 1650.” Such public exhibitions on festivals took place in other churches besides the Pantheon, as for instance, in San Giovanni Decollato, and in San Bartolomeo dei Bergamaschi. Printed verses, both laudatory and the reverse, were affixed to the more important works, the latter giving rise to lively rejoinders and worse. Salvator Rosa's success with a Prometheus exhibited on such an occasion led to his removing to Rome. In the last century Francisco Preciado, Director of the Spanish Academy in Rome, thought he had rediscovered this portrait of Pareja in the residence of Car- dinal Trajano d’Acquaviva. This is probably one of the two almost identical exemplars now in Eng- land, preserved respectively by the Earl of Carlisle in Castle Howard, and by the Earl of Radnor in Long- ford Castle (size 30x25 inches). The half-length figure of the mestizo stands out on the light grey ground, traced with a broad, firm brush, and spare impasto on the canvas. Thus he stood in the presence of his master, facing to the right, his hand holding the cloak with a somewhat plebeian grasp, the head carried very erect. The flashing black eye has almost a haughty gaze, taking the measure of the observer, as if he felt highly exalted at being painted by his master, and at the honour of appearing before the Roman virtuosi. A certain sly air seems to betray the secret, of which the master is still unaware, that “ I also am a painter.” The refractory kinky hair has been adapted as well as may be to the Spanish mode of frizzling. Eyebrows and beard are thin, and in other respects the African type is shown in the narrow forehead bulging about the glabella, the large cheekbones, nose depressed at the root, everted red lips, and coppery- brown shiny skin. That it is really the portrait of Pareja is evident from its agreement 2 3 354 Velazquez. with his own likeness in the Calling of Matthew now in the Madrid Museum ; only Velazquez has accentuated the racial features, whereas Pareja has with intelligible vanity assimilated himself to the European standard. Both stand in somewhat the same relation to one another, as do, for instance, the heads of Dumas father and son. Pareja wears a smirched dark green doublet buttoned up, and a broad white collar with lace border, which is very becoming to the dark figure. The impression conveyed by the picture in Castle Howard, published in Lord Gower’s Historical Galleries, agrees in all respects with Schmidt’s description. Even in that rich assembly of good portraits its truth to life arrests attention. To judge of the relations of the two exemplars, which so closely resemble each other, they should be seen together. Innocent X. Although now in his seventy-fifth year Innocent was still a tall, majestic figure, with “ the voice, complexion, and carriage of a young man” (Ameyden). His robust constitution had not been injured by close study in his youth, for he had always shared in the distractions and pursuits of his associates, and was still an active, lusty walker, laughing to scorn the warnings of his physicians. Mignard’s portrait had been admired for the happy way in which it depicted a ripe old age without decrepitude. After the haughty reserve of his Florentine predecessor, Urban VIII., Rome once more rejoiced in a pope for whom the giving of audiences often to large numbers, as in the Quirinal garden, was rather a relief from toil than a labour. He himself spoke with lively gratification of the throng of pilgrims, who on May 27, 1650, accompanied him with deafening shouts of jubilation from the Chiesa nuova to his palace. Although of a saturnine temperament, and often a prey to moody thoughts, Innocent freely unbended and indulged in playful or caustic badinage with those who enjoyed his full confidence. He had reached the throne through his services as a diplomatist and nunzio, where his taciturn disposition passed for depth. He was wary and sceptical in his judgments of men, not quick to grasp the situation, but tenacious and to the last unwearied in the conduct of affairs. On all weighty public questions his administration marks the transition from the aggressive policy of his predecessors to the temporizing attitude required by the changed relations of the spiritual and temporal orders. Personally he held military display in no account ; yet he was Innocent X. 355 destined by the irony of fate to avail himself of the Barberini’s warlike preparations. His character revealed itself in that outburst of papal anger on the occasion of the Castro war (1649), a manifestation of righteous indignation worthy of the heroic times of the papacy. That campaign was occasioned by the assassination of a bishop, whom Innocent had appointed to the see of Castro against the will of the Duke of Parma. This opportunity was now utilized to level with the ground the fortress of that place, which had been a standing menace to the INNOCENT X. States of the Church. On its site a column was raised with the inscription: Qui fu Castro (“Here stood Castro”). The strong sense of clanship peculiar to the genuine Italian completes the picture of this pope’s character. But in this instance it so happened that the only person fit to play the part of the “ cardinal nephew,” still regarded as indispensable, was a woman, Olimpia . Maidalchini, his brother’s widow ; the three nephews that had been successively raised to this position had to be set aside as incompetent instruments. Donna 356 Velazquez. Olimpia was a person of masculine will and intelligence, although her political sagacity had hitherto been displayed only in conversations ; of feminine qualities she possessed nothing but insatiable greed and ambi- tion. She had been a spur and a guide to her somewhat vacillating brother-in-law during his upward career, and he now felt himself tied by gratitude and habit to this woman, thanks to whom he was exposed to a storm of jeers and gibes. 1 Contemporary writers vied with each other in their descriptions of his ugliness ; they dwelt on his course lineaments, broad heavy forehead, the lowering almost malignant glance of the deepset eye, vulgar mouth and nose, bloated and blotched countenance, flushed colour, thin beard, a certain innate roughness rendered more repellent by age. When Guido was painting the History of Attila in St. Peter’s, his dilatoriness having been reproved by the then Cardinal Pamfili, he is said to have revenged himself by giving the features of his Eminence to the satan under the feet of his St. Michael in the Church of the Capuchins, although according to others the original of this particular satan was the Cardinal Spinola. In the Conclave of 1645 his Satanic aspect was stated to have been urged as a disqualification against his election to the pontifical chair. It seemed a sort of fatality that here in Rome the most repulsive head amorigst the successors of St. Peter should have fallen to the lot of Velazquez, who in Madrid had to paint the most odious of ministers and the least interesting of royal types. There are few portraits, few paintings of any kind, that have at all times so instantaneously taken possession of all classes of obseryers. To have auricular evidence of this, we need but linger some ten or fifteen minutes in the vicinity of the picture. From the unsightly features a glance of the blue-grey eye reaches us, which is more potent than the brilliant purple and the glistening gold. Some one remarked that if he gazed any longer at the head, the man would haunt him in his dreams. The inner angle of the eye is, so to say, the magnetic pole of the head. Here is the deepest patch of shade ; here the furrow of thought on the forehead cuts in, pressing the eyebrows down, while close by flashes the moist mirror of the eye. Here lies the spark of animation, the germ of youth still surviving in old age ; here is the psychic contact with the spectator, but above all the most potent impulse of the aged ruler to search the hearts of men, that determination to penetrate to the thing itself through the veil of whispered promptings and half-truths. The 1 Thus Don Pasquino: II Papa ama piit Olimpia che VOlimpo (“The Pope loves Olympia more than Olympus”). — Translator. Innocent X. 357 glance, drawn from the deepest recesses of a character at once suspicious and reserved, concentrates in itself the whole being of the aged statesman, “ who was ever unfathomable ” ( Passeri ). Like the style of the portrait, this glance has at the same time an eminently papal element. Painters cannot possibly remain indifferent in the presence of this portrait. “ How that hand is advanced !” “ What a very modern painter !” some may exclaim. It is not, however, the obvious tricks of legerdemain of the practised artist that impress them, but rather the absence of these tricks ; not the harmony of the colours, but the effect produced under the most unfavourable combinations ; in short, the seemingly unstudied way the eagerly 'sough t-for goal of the portrait painter appears here to be reached. “ It looks dashed off just anyhow ! ” The impression is due not merely to the Spanish painter’s general qualities, which here have the charm of novelty for most observers. Com- pared with his other productions, the portrait was really an extempore affair. The persons who usually sat to him, were members of the Court, with whom he was in daily contact. But not so here, for the artist can only have seen the pope for a short time at the audience, or else from a distance. The study of the features must have been made during the brief interval that he was permitted to stand at his easel in presence of his Holiness. How much more favourably circumstanced were other * painters of famous pontifical portraits ! Hence the hesitations, the discordances, the technical solecisms, the evident wrestling with the optical difficulties. Impasto has occasionally been applied to the glazing ; the lace handkerchief falls over the surplice of a quite identical white colour, and the hands show signs of revision. The right hand, with the signet ring hanging over the arm of the throne, was originally more bent, and traces of the old fingers can still be seen, partly covered with white, partly giving the half-tone for the present fingers, which are applied with a light flesh tint. The extremely plastic appearance of this hand is due to the dazzling white ground, and perhaps also to the faltering contours producing on the eye a stereoscopic effect. The left hand holding a letter, i although more finished, still seems to have undergone revision, and is of somewhat vulgar form. 1 The inscription on this letter runs : — Alla Santta di Nro Sig re : Innocencio Xo. Per Diego de Silva Velazquez de la Ca mera di S. MT Cattca. Then follow some words that have been effaced. (Size i'4o x r20 metre.) 358 Velazquez. Yet to this haste the portrait is partly indebted for its powerful effect. It has the charm of directness ; it concentrates within the space of a few hours all the powers of observation and exposition. It differs from ordinary paintings, as the works of sculptors who take the marble in hand at once, and without models, differ from those in which not a step is ventured without rule and compass. They may occasionally stumble; but in return they acquire qualities alone capable of standing the severest tests. To judge of the resemblance we possess exceptionally good material in some excellent effigies by Roman sculptors, whose sure hand or boldly realistic execution inspires confidence in their accuracy. Such are Algardi’s bronze statue in the Conservatorio, Bernini's marble bust and his gilt- bronze head with porphyry bust in the Doria Gallery, the bronze in the South Kensington Museum, and the marble statue on his monument in St. Agnese. But here we are confronted by a remarkable circumstance. Whoever first makes the aged pope’s acquaintance through Velazquez, will find that these busts by no means answer to the idea he has formed of the man’s personality. They seem at variance in the modelling of the head as well as in the character and expression, in some fundamental traits no less than in numerous details. In the painting we seem to recognize a head with a compact bony frame and tolerably full flesh covering ; the lower jaw appears somewhat prognathous, imparting to this region a touch of defiance and harshness, which, combined with the searching glance and rubicund or flushed com- plexion, gives a far from agreeable general effect. The impressipn of an unbridled temper, in fact, outweighs the intellectual qualities, and in his survey of the different portraits the pope’s latest biographer finds in the painting “something crude, material, trivial, and an air of passion due to the sanguineous complexion.” 1 But the marbles and bronzes give rather the impression of phlegm with predominant intelligence, of the experienced statesman and jurist. Thus Edwin Stowe remarks that “ the portrait in metal [the bronze in South Kensington] is suggestive of majestic dignit}^ and high intellectual faculties, qualities which we fail to discern in the more truthful canvas .” 2 In the sculptures the glance is calm and attentive, sometimes perhaps with a dash of cold scepticism and contempt, sometimes with a touch of genial humour. At the time of his accession Innocent was a man who had grown old in the work of the Congregations and of the Roman Curia. 1 Ciampi : Vita di hmoccuzo X., p. 200. 2 Velazquez , p. 61. Innocent X. 359 In harmony with such a career is the forehead, projecting above the bushy eyebrows and shading the small eyes with their wrinkled surroundings. Pontifical portraits leave little scope for a choice of colours. Cap, short cloak or cape, chair, hangings, are all alike of a brilliant crimson with unimportant shades, and varied only, as well as heightened, by the snow-white surplice. Here, therefore, the problem was to give due prominence to the features amid these overwhelming masses of gorgeous colour. In this case the problem was rendered still more difficult by the fact that the pope’s complexion was itself ruddy, a tint a accesa, or “flushed hue." The general result is doubtless an unusual uniformity, which becomes almost isochromatic, and on which unquestionably to some extent depends its direct and irresistible effect on the eye. But the redness of the countenance being considerably less surcharged and pure than those homo- geneous purple tones, this main feature seems the least conspicuous part of the whole. This result might have been avoided by a vigorous use of chiaroscuro ; but the figure is painted almost without any shadows. The dazzling white of the surplice is also injurious to the face and the lights on forehead, nose and cheeks, which give more lustre than relief. This defect had already been noticed by Richardson, who censures the artist for not having painted the linen of the surplice transparent. From the portrait of Innocent in Apsley House, the head of which is by Velazquez himself, we may see what a different effect might have been produced with a different arrangement of the surroundings. Here the ground is blackish brown, and the pontifical cape has a dull rose tone. How great was my surprise at the striking difference, as I beheld this work in the early light of a March sun struggling through the foggy London atmosphere ! The contiguous tones of the bright red cap, of the pale collar and the vivid fresh complexion of the hale old man, instead of injuring mutually heightened each other. Although this carnation was the same as in the Doria picture, the suppression of the red curtain had not only removed the injurious glare, but had even given rise to contrasts. The flesh colour seemed bright and clear on the dark ground, soft and tender under the gleaming red of the cap, and warm by the side of the collar inclining to violet, while it assumed even a golden tone in the solid lights, the light grey half-tones and the reflected lights. In token of his approval Innocent presented Velazquez with a gold chain and medal bearing his own likeness in relief, a distinction which was commemorated upon the painter’s tomb, and which to my knowledge 360 Velazquez. was shown to no other artist except Algardi after casting this pope’s bronze statue. It is also related (. PEdes Walpoliance, p. 67) that “ when the pope sent his chamberlain to pay the artist, he would not receive the money, saying the king, his master, always paid him with his own hand. The pope humor’d him.” After the extinction of the Pamfili family (1760) the picture passed to the Doria Landi branch, and long held the place of honour in the palace on the Corso over against Sebastian del Piombo’s Andrea Doria. Lately it has been removed from the tribunetta in the gallery and placed under a canopy in the large entrance hall. From the first the work met with great approbation amongst Art circles in Rome, “ which is more partial to strangers than to her own children ” ( Passer /). “ Our Velazquez,” writes Palomino, “came to Italy, not however to learn but to teach ; for the portrait of Pope Innocent X. was the amaze- ment of Rome ; all copied it as a study, and looked on it as a marvel ” (ii., 63). Much Italian testimony might be adduced to the same effect, and even so late as 1794 Salvatore Tonci spoke of the work as “ a misfortune for all its neighbours ; the glorious Guido amongst the rest (the Virgin wor- shipping the Child) appears by its side mere parchment.” In Th. Moore’s Memoirs 1 it is stated that Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounced it “ the finest picture in Rome. This and the St. Michael of Guido were, they sa} r , the only ones he condescended to copy.” Curtis mentions sixteen such copies and replicas, all professing to be original repetitions or sketches. But the little faith in their authenticity is shown by the low figures for which they were knocked down at public sales. Curtis states that “ the first auction sale of a picture by our artist known to the writer, in England or elsewhere,” was such a head of Innocent X., sold at Cock’s in Poland Street, London, February 19, 1725. At the same time Velazquez may probably enough have repeated the portrait at least for the king, and have kept a study for some such purpose. Palomino in fact tells us that he brought back a copy by his own hand, and a half-length figure three feet high occurs in the inventories of the new Bourbon Palace, where it was seen by Cean Bermudez (v., 179). This work probably disappeared during the Napoleonic wars, for the large painting in the Escorial is by another hand, although the figure agrees altogether with that of the Doria work. It is ascribed to Pietro Berettini. The only repetition known to me that has been beyond doubt executed by our master is the already mentioned work in Apsley House. As the 1 Edited by Lord John Russell (London: 1853), iii., 62. Innocent X. 361 measurements also agree, this might be regarded as the replica mentioned by Palomino, although it has the appearance rather of a study afterwards com- pleted. Its genealogy also militates against that assumption, for it agrees in all respects with the outlined engraving published in Le Brun’s Recueil. This amateur had purchased in Madrid the greater part of the D’Azara collection, and we also know from Ponz that this envoy had discovered in Rome a head of Innocent, which he regarded as a study for the Doria portrait, the bust having been added by Camail or some other painter. At the Le Brun sale (1810) it fetched one thousand and fifty francs. In the presence of this canvas we begin to form some idea of the con- scientious care and sure touch with which this remarkable head has been studied and delineated. The surfaces were solidly prepared in the clear note of the carnations, and then the crimson tone glazed on with exclusion of the high lights. The small brown shadows were also applied afterwards. The so-called sketch in the Hermitage might also with some probability be attributed to Velazquez himself. But if so, it can be no sketch , but a spirited replica executed directly by the artist, who, being master of his subject, needed no preliminary studies. Whoever calls such a work a sketch puts the cart before the horse. The best complete copy known to me by a strange hand is that in Lord Bute’s collection, London. 1 It skilfully reproduces the luminous purple, the lustre and the pose, but has nothing of Velazquez’ touch and manner. The copyist’s vacillation is betrayed in the hands, where with far more appliances he tells us far less than the master. These laboriously executed extremities are less defined and less plastic than the originals dashed off with the scantiest means. Another copy acquired in Rome for the Gordon Gallery at the beginning of this century was thought by Wilkie superior to the original in the tone of features and hands. But when these parts are spoken of as "more complete,” we begin to suspect that they are somewhat in the style of the Bute copy The price also (nineteen guineas) contrasts strangely with such warm praise. The head in Lansdowne House must be classed with the inferior wares manufactured for the market, while the portrait in Chiswick House is the work of an eccentric and repulsive mannerist. His Holiness, enthroned and wrapped in a loose purple mantle, raises a very large hand to bless the faithful, and repels them by his glassy stare and pallid, long-drawn features. I can call to mind no similar painting of the Spanish or Italian schools, and one begins to suspect the forger apeing according to his lights the sparkling splendour and spirited touch of the master. 1 No. 6 in J. P. Richter’s Catalogue (London: 1883); size 54 x 45 inches. 362 Velazquez. After this triumph in the higher places all the palace wanted itself painted by the great Spaniard. Palomino mentions Donna Olimpia, Cardinal Pamfili, Monsignor Camillo Massimi (whom he apparently confounds with the painter Massimo Stanzioni) ; the chamberlain, Abate Ippolito ; the major-domo , the pope’s barber and others. But of any such portraits not one has hitherto been identified, not even the Major-domo disposed of at the Salamanca sale, January 1875, declared to be “ unquestioned and unquestionable ” by an expert, and sold for nineteen thousand three hundred francs ! The Antiques. But meanwhile Velazquez had not lost sight of his special commission, the selections and castings from the antique intended to decorate the new apartments of the Alcazar. Now it so happened that the very year of his arrival witnessed the opening of the Roman Museum of Antiquities. On March 9 Innocent X. paid his first solemn visit to the Capitol in order to inspect the now nearly completed building of the Capitoline Museum. At this juncture, when the Treaty of Westphalia had set its seal to the anti-papal tendencies of the European Cabinets, efforts were being made at the papal court which were destined in other relations to constitute Rome a chief centre of modern culture. During the Anti-Reformation period a hostile spirit had frequently been stirred up against pagan antiquity ; but henceforth papal munificence was directed more and more towards the preservation and public display of the classic remains confided to the safekeeping of the Roman pontiffs. One of the first measures of Innocent X.’s administration was the completion of the buildings on the Campidoglio, which at that time were spoken of as la fabbrica nuova del Popolo Romano. But the interior ap- pears to have remained for some time tolerably empty, for the Pamfili and other great families required the antiques to adorn their own spacious palaces and villas. Still a great step had been taken ; an asylum had been erected which was well stocked by the highly cultured popes of the eighteenth century. The true founder of the present Capitoline collection was Clement XII., of the Corsini family, who reigned from 173° to I 74 °- According to Palomino’s account ( Museo iii. , 337-40) Velazquez had to get castings of thirty-two statues, besides full length figures and busts of many Roman effigies, together with the head of Michael Angelo’s Moses. At the head of the list stand the statues of the Belvedere, Laokoon, Apollo, the so-called Antinous (Meleager), the so-called Cleopatra (Ariadne), the Venus, and the Nile. The Antiques. 363 The Hercules and the Flora of the Palazzo Farnese, now in Naples. A Daughter of Niobe and the Group of Wrestlers in the Villa Medici, now in the Uffizi. The so-called Gladiator ; the Mars erect ; the Hermaphrodite ; the Hercules (Germanicus) ; the Satyr with the Infant Bacchus of the Villa Borghese, now in the Louvre. The Dying Gladiator ; the Mars seated ; and the Mercury of the Villa Ludovisi. The Youth extracting a Thorn, in the Capitol. Public opinion had already singled out most of these works as the finest relics of antiquity. The study of the antique itself was most popular in Rome, where its influence on artists had never been so great as at present. Castings of many of these statues must have long existed, and so early as 1645 Evelyn found copies of the Dying Gladiator in stone and metal “ scattered over all Europe.” Velazquez could not fail to meet with influential and competent advisers and agents. Amongst the persons at Court painted by him was the learned Monsignor Camillo Massimi (born 1620, ob. 1677), who later became a nunzio in Madrid and a cardinal. His happiness was wrapped up in a collection of antiquities and coins, inscriptions and manuscripts, which he had brought together in the palace of the Quattro Fontane. Here was the resort of Roman and foreign artists and men of letters. The Spanish Court was already personally acquainted with the Cavaliere Cassiano del Pozzo, who had accompanied Cardinal Barberini to Madrid in the year 1626. His museum of drawings, coins, reliefs, and paintings, was also one of the sights of Rome ; here Poussin made his studies of the antique, and in gratitude painted the Seven Sacraments for Cassiano. He had procured drawings of the reliefs and statues in Rome from Pietro Testa. Lastly there was the antiquary and papal librarian Ippolito Vitelleschi who had purchased a piece of ground in Neapolitan territory with a view to excavations. An enthusiast of the temperament of Winckelmann, he held converse with his statues as with living beings, reciting sentences, poetry, and speeches to them. These three men were all friends and patrons both of Poussin and of Franqois du Quesnoy, who were the first to form their style on the study of antiquity in deliberate opposition to the current taste. No member of the Sacred College stood in closer relation to the Spanish Court than Cardinal Girolamo Colonna (born 1604, ob. 1666), whose bust is in the Colonna Gallery, Rome. As a young abate he had been attracted to Madrid by Philip IV. ; he had taken his degree at Alcala, and had later 364 Velazquez. been again summoned by the king to Spain in order to accompany the Princess Margaret to Germany, but died on reaching the Spanish coast. It is uncertain whether it was on this last occasion, or during Velazquez’ visit to Rome, that he presented Philip with the famous Apotheosis of Claudius, which had hitherto been preserved in the Colonna Palace, and which was the most important original antique possessed by the Spanish monarch. Extant accounts are at variance as to the extent to which Velazquez personally executed his commission in Rome. According to Bellori, 1 he procured not only the forms, but the castings themselves in bronze and stucco, and Malvasia gives the price — thirty thousand crowns. But Palomino’s statement is that he obtained the forms alone in Rome, and that the castings were not made till after his return to Madrid, by Geronimo Ferrer and Domingo de la Rioja, who had come with the forms from Rome. Passeri’s account is partly to the same effect. All the best statues were set up in the new apartments, and others on the steps of the Rubinejo, while several were sent to the Bobeda del Tigre and the lower north gallery. On the portrait of the Queen-widow Mariana in Castle Howard is seen the statue of the Dancing Satyr. The palace inventory for 1686 mentions without giving any details twenty-six statues and twelve heads in bronze ; eleven and ten respectively in marble ; thirty-one reliefs ; thirty-one statues and thirty-four heads in stucco and clay, eighteen statues and scenes of bacchantes, besides the planets and the twelve bronze lions. Most of the bronzes by the two Leoni would appear at that time to have been in Buen Retiro. Four of the bronzes, the Hermaphrodite, Venus, Thorn Extractor, and Antinous, seen by Ponz in the new palace, are now in the Prado, as is also the seated Nymph with the conch. The stucco forms passed later to the San Fernando Academy of Arts founded by Philip V., where the same Ponz still saw many (Hercules, Flora, Venus, Gladiator) in bad condition or patched up. But Raphael Mengs must have found both these and the old castings unserviceable, for he makes no allusion to them at a time when his most earnest desire was to acquire such moulds of the statues from the Belvedere, the Borghese and Ludovisi villas. Mf.telli and Colonna. Besides the purchase of pictures one of Velazquez’s chief objects was to engage Italian decorative painters for the new works in the royal palace. There was no lack of engineers ; but Spain was absolutely destitute of any school of decorative painting, and even the fresco technique had died out 1 Vita di A Algardi , p. 399. Metelli and Colonna. 365 with the sixteenth century. Cloisters, archways, cupolas and such places were usually covered with scenes nearly always painted in oil on canvas nailed to the surface. Hence the Art-loving monarch saw nothing for it except to convert his palace into a picture gallery. So long as he had the treasures of Venetian Art to fall back upon, or could command the services of a Rubens capable in a few years of covering a whole hunting-seat with mythologies, he had no reason to complain of the result. Yet it was impossible to shut one’s eyes to the fact that even a Pinakothek of masterpieces is not the only, perhaps not even the most agreeable, form of pictorial embellishment, especially for apartments in daily use. On the other hand the performances of Cano, Arias, Camilo, and the other native artists, could hardly be called successful. The realistic tendency of the Spanish school at that time, destitute of all imagination and nurtured on conventional religious pabulum, was ill-adapted for the treatment of the free poetic painting that was here required. No one was quicker to make this discovery than the king himself, who ridiculed Camilo’s scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Buen Retiro, remarking that Jupiter looked like the Saviour and Juno like the Madonna. The physiognomies of these Hellenic gods and goddesses were too Spanish, too gloomy ; and in any case such hasty and ill-paid works must have cut a sorry figure compared with those of the Venetian apartments. The few Italians, or Italo- Spaniards still surviving in Madrid even now gave most satisfaction. Angelo Nardi supplied all manner of fantastic things for the royal private apartments. Francisco Rizi and Pedro Nunez painted the new theatre; Julius Caesar Semin adorned the west gallery and the king’s boudoir “ with flowers, festoons, children,” but in oil and water colours. Hence the constant efforts of the Spanish Court to secure renowned or competent fresco painters from Italy. Velazquez appears on this occasion to have paid special attention to mural painting, although personally despising that technique. Palomino tells us (iii., 336) that in Genoa he at all events gave a cursory glance to the works of Lazzaro Calvi (born 1502, ob. 1595), who had imitated Perin del Vaga. But on his return journey Velazquez had an opportunity of studying nearly all the best works of the two artists of the Bolognese school, Agostino Metelli (born 1609 in Bologna) and Angelo Michele Colonna (born 1600 near Como), who were universally regarded as the inventors or perfecters of a new system of wall-painting, and' who enjoyed the patronage of several princes connected with the Spanish Court. According to Palomino he visited them in Bologna, where most of their “ galleries ” 366 Velazquez. and decorated apartments were to be seen. The Oratorio of San Giuseppe, which contained one of their finest works in that place, was destroyed a few years ago. But the Chapel of the Rosary in San Domenico, their last masterpiece in Italy, was not executed till 1656 — that is, subsequently to Velazquez’ visit. In Rome, however, he also saw one of their best productions in the Capo di Ferro Palace, which had lately been purchased and redecorated by Cardinal Belardino Spada. The system introduced by these two little-known artists may be regarded as a counter-movement or protest against the overcrowding with figures especially on ceilings and vaulted surfaces, which is usually supposed to characterize the decadence period, but which is really much older, as seen in the woful treatment of the Florentine Duomo. They developed the taste for architectural painting by transforming the given space, walls and roofs on an independent plan combining poetic and per- spective features. The figures thus played only a subordinate part amid the decorative surroundings. The general approval and adoption of this system by numerous though greatly inferior imitators show that they had come at the right moment, and that the public were tired of the crowded historic scenes which had prevailed since the fourteenth century. This process had certainly never died out in Italy, but had fallen to a subordinate position until it was raised to the dignity of an Art by Girolamo Curtis (// Dentone). As his associates Metelli and Colonna cultivated the same manner, the former giving it the name of veduta ("view,” "prospect”) because he departed from the unity of the visual point. The fundamental idea was a moderate opening up of walls and ceiling by some apparent architectural structure, in which the various parts of the real building were still echoed at intervals. The result are narrow perspective vistas, more suggestive than manifest, in clear inte- riors, colonnaded halls, houses with flights of steps, courts, all in marble colours, and disposed for the most part obliquely on the wall surfaces, and surmounted by low carved galleries. The four walls thus resemble a courtyard on which open magnificent apartments. But the ceiling, being first prepared with rich mouldings in strong profile, was transformed to a lofty dome suspended above the whole space, with a large elliptical opening, as in the Pantheon. The simulated architecture of the walls is set off with niches showing marble and bronze tablets, or medallions with reliefs where Dentone had learnt to apply the lights with gold. All this necessitated a com- plete command of Vignola’s precepts, as well as of perspective and relief, and Metelli himself had in fact been applied to by architects for designs. Metelli and Colonna. 367 The impression of such surfaces however would have scarcely raised the enthusiasm of the observer but for a lavish, although still finely toned, employment of light. For this purpose Metelli created an extremely solid and durable fresco technique, mixing, for instance, selenite powder with the lime, as in Pompeii. He passed in Bologna and elsewhere for the first fresco painter of the period. To animate and complete the poetic illusion living figures were indis- pensable; but they were sparingly distributed in suitable places. In this respect also the system agreed with that prevalent during the Roman Empire. A page hurrying down the steps, a lady culling a few roses from the mass of flowering plants in the vase on the gallery, a negro hanging a rug over the balustrade, a few figures connected with some simple daily incident, watching for instance the flight of an escaped parrot from various parts of the room, sufficed for this purpose. Or perhaps they were replaced by ideal figures above the cornice, amorini with wreaths of flowers and fruits, allegorical women and the like. Probably the horizontal perspective for figures has nowhere been so happily applied as here. These figures at the same time complete the general pictorial effect ; sparingly dispersed over the scene they stand with their vivid colours in pleasant contrast to the prevailing colourless tone of the marble, bronze and gold. Although both artists had mastered the perspective and figure paint- ing, since they began to work jointly each devoted himself to a separate department ; Metelli painted the architecture only, Colonna the figures, statues, flowers, but after the sketches previously prepared by his asso- ciate. Although Colonna was a skilful and prolific historic painter, as shown by his works in the Bolognese churches and palaces, he was never- theless self-denying enough to confine himself henceforth entirely to these ornamental accessories. “ During a fellowship of twenty-four years they shared fame and profits,” working so that nobody would suspect two hands. Velazquez appears to have concluded the negotiations, at least as he supposed, with the two artists either in Florence or Bologna, it is not quite clear which, as may be inferred from a letter of the Modenese official Gennaro Poggi, addressed to Duke Francis I. on December 12, 1650. ' After stating that he was unable to let Velazquez inspect the collections in the palace, of which the duke “ had the keys,” offering to show him over the neighbouring palace of Sassuolo instead, Poggi adds: ‘‘Touching the fresco painting he has told -me that he takes S r Michele Colonna and Agostino [Metelli] with him to • Spain in order to paint for His Majesty, and that in a few days they would meet in 3 68 Velazquez. Genoa. This news was as displeasing as it was unexpected to me, and really one may well fear that Colonna will run greater risk of losing his life than [have prospects] of acquiring wealth.” But on reaching Genoa Velazquez must have been sadly disappointed to find they had left him in the lurch. Nor have I been able to discover any motives for their conduct. We learn, however, from Malvasia that in the same year, 1650, they were again busy inj Florence, working for Cardinal Giovanni Carlo dei Medici. They painted his house in the Via della Scala and a saloon in the Pitti Palace, as well as a villa at Camugliano for the Marquis Niccolini. Probably the cardinal, in order to appease the Spanish Court, with which he stood in close relation, afterwards used his influence with the artists, who at last undertook the journey to Spain in 1658, through the mediation of the cardinal and the senator Marquis Cospi. These days in Genoa, his last on Italian soil, were probably the most unpleasant Velazquez ever experienced. He went reluctantly, but was fain to obey, and here also he became aware that his efforts had been bootless in another matter, which the king appears to have had greatly at heart. This had reference to the acquisition of some Correggios in Modena, and especially the Nativity, which Velazquez failed to obtain, as appears from Ottonelli’s letter of January 13, 1652, sent from Madrid to the duke. On the arrival of the two Bolognese artists in 1658, all the arrange- ments for their reception, entertainment and especially the work they had to take in hand, were left by the king to Velazquez. But everything that they executed during nearly four years of incessant activity perished with the old palace. Detailed accounts, however, are given of these works by Malvasia, 1 Passeri, 2 and Palomino. 3 Some of Malvasia’s statements, however, are, even for such a writer, unusually confused and inaccurate. Metelli’s last work was the dome of the Church of the Mercenarios, which he had scarcely begun when he was carried off by fever on August 2, 1660. Colonna completed this work, surviving his associate till the year 1662. 1 Felsina, ii., 406. 2 Vite dei Pittori , 272. 3 Op. cit., p. 344, et seq. SEVENTH BOOK THE LAST DECADE. 165 1 — 1660. LAST YEARS — THE OFFICE OF PALACE MARSHAL — ADMINISTRATION OF THE GALLERIES THE CROSS OF SANTIAGO — THE COMPLETION OF THE ESCORIAL — THE “ MEMORIA.” 24 The Last Years. O N this occasion also Velazquez had put off from day to day his departure, doubtless feeling that this would be a final farewell to Italy. Repeated reminders appear to have reached him, and at last the king’s express command was communicated to him through the secretary, Don Fernando Ruiz de Contreras. For some time he thought of returning through France, and had already had his passport prepared at the embassy, but his courage failed him at the last moment, damped by the war rumours then flying about. After a boisterous passage from Genoa he landed at Barcelona in June 1651. On reaching the capital he at once presented himself before the king, who in a letter to Don Luis de Haro expressed his pleasure at Velazquez’ return and at the paintings he had brought with him from Italy. In November his stipend as Court painter and inspector of the works in the octagonal hall during the period of his absence was duly discharged. Henceforth he continued for the nine remaining years of his life in closer relationship than ever with his royal patron, honoured, constantly employed and even loved. His last public service was the organization of the Court journey to the Pyrenees in connection with the marriage of Philip’s eldest daughter. Remarkable coincidence ! His introduction to Court had occurred about the time war had again broken out with the Nether- lands ; and now his life was brought to a close after he had witnessed the conclusion of the treaty of peace with France. During these seven-and- thirty years of uninterrupted and exhausting wars, of waning political and military capacity, of constantly increasing financial embarrassment, he had calmly practised his Art in the very midst of the surrounding calamities. He seemed like a forest tree shooting up amid the scattered boulders on some storm-swept cliff. Velazquez must be classed with those whose career has been cut short while the stream of life was still on the flow ; for although he had completed his sixty-first year, he cannot be said to have entered on "the sear and 372 Velazquez. yellow leaf.” In fact it was not till this last decade that his brush acquired the language that appeals most eloquently to artists and non-professionals alike. Now also he was gratified with those outward marks of esteem, honourable and influential posts and decorations, that men of his position and training still delight in. Yet, whereas men cultivating the intellectual faculties usually consider that years give them the right to live at ease, exempt from all disturbing and absorbing outward cares, our master became now for the first time so burdened with such occupations, that he could henceforth give little more than his spare moments to his Art. These changed conditions, how- ever, would scarcely be surmised from the works produced during this period. His manner of painting doubtless became more summary, more expeditious than heretofore ; but no one knew better than he did how to make a virtue of necessity. While he belonged less than ever to himself, he, as it were, now for the first time thoroughly discovered himself, producing works in which he least resembles others. This third and last style we meet in pictures, which again completely illustrate his many-sided genius — mythologies, echoes of his Roman inspirations ; grotesque figures from town and Court circles ; religious subjects ; royal persons, especially those princesses whose star rose in these years above the horizon : the young queen who had made her appearance during his absence in Italy, and her daughter, born a few weeks after his return to the capital. But everything produced at this time, however excellent in itself, seems merely casual “ fallings ” compared with two incomparable creations, the profoundest pictorial visions of this master. The Office of Palace Marshal (Aposentador de Palacio). In the opinion of competent contemporaries Velazquez was the mirror of a Spanish nobleman and courtier. Since the days of the "stately” Antonio Moro, no cavalier of the profession in Madrid could be remembered comparable to him in this respect. J. Burckhardt in the Cicerone points to "something almost affectedly noble” about his portrait in the Uffizi; and in fact that likeness answers perfectly to the descriptions left us by those who knew him. When he petitioned for the Cross of Santiago, many gentlemen in the Court and capital were consulted on the matter, and their testimony was conclusive. One speaks of his sense of honour and dignity, another of his delicate tact and imposing presence, others The Office of Palace Marshal. 373 again of his magnificence and gravity, while Francisco Gutierrez Cabello pronounces him "one of the most splendid men of his time.” Velazquez, scion of an ancient Portuguese house, who in his youth had thought more of securing a firm footing at Court than of making the usual Art tour in Italy, fully shared the social ideas of his class. He was by no means indifferent to the minor offices of usher or chamberlain : Court employments at that time often formed the highest or even the sole goal of aristocratic ambition. The Castilian nobles, sinking deeper and deeper into frivolous indolent habits, no longer valued the commandos and other appointments that banished them from the gay capital. “ The only office,” writes Grammont, " that I have observed the grandees at all care for, is that of gentilhombre de cdmara en ejercicio, because at table, at the robing and unrobing during the weekly service, they enjoy the privilege of seeing His Majesty.” Our master also, on his return from Rome, where he had been honoured by his Holiness and the world of Art, was again imbued with the spirit and aspirations of the courtling, and the empty show despised by posterity became the loftiest aim of his ambition. Now that he had reached his golden prime, capable of producing works, which after two hundred years are still the goal of Art pilgrims, he petitions for the post of a royal quarter-master ! This post of aposentador del rey, which had been vacated the year before his return from Italy, although no aristocratic office, was still regarded as “ a charge of much importance and honour” ( Jusepe Martinez). Velazquez applied for it doubtless with the tacit approval of the king, if not at his suggestion. He based his application on the ground that this office was suited to his peculiar position, tastes and occupation. Unfortunately it differed from his previous appointments, which were rather in the nature of convenient sinecures, inasmuch as it involved a number of petty duties, which deprived him both of the leisure and disposition for nobler pursuits. The stipend was three thousand ducats with official residence in the Casa del Tesoro. The aposentador mayor de palacio de S.M., or palace marshal to the king (for the queen also had her house marshal) had charge of the interior of the royal residence, consequently that part of the Alcazar that encircled the second courtyard; and also organized the Court journeys. He had always to appear in his cloak, but without hat or sword, in the king’s dwelling, the doors and windows of which he opened. He was specially charged with the furnishing and decoration of the palace, including sanitary arrangements and heating. The key which he wore in his girdle opened 374 Velazquez. all doors ; he assigned the palace ladies their quarters ; he placed the king’s chair when dining in public, he made the dispositions for Court festivities, consulting his Majesty on the programmes for masquerades, plays, balls and tournaments. On journeys he had to provide quarters for the Court and all attendants, and to fulfil many other minor but often troublesome and even menial duties, which made the position no bed of roses, especially amongst such sticklers for etiquette as the Spaniards. For Velazquez the greatest loss of time was doubtless caused by the periodical journeys of the Court to the royal country seats, to the provincial Cortes and to the seat of war. It so happened that during his tenure of office one of those tremendous journeys to the frontiers occurred, which in fact cost him his life. On these occasions he rode on mules, and what a trip in Spain meant at that time those can best judge who have travelled, say, in the Balkan Peninsula. " We got nothing but a roof over the bare ground,” writes Sagredo. Dining-room, kitchen, beds, chairs and tables, attendants — all had to be brought across country, there being no rivers or canals to transport them, while the highways were in a state of utter neglect, and the land often looked for miles and miles like a wilderness. One should read the lamentations of the foreign envoys, who are scarcely able to find words strong enough to express their wrath at the hardships they had to endure. They generally reached Saragossa or Madrid completely knocked up and even the Spaniards themselves needed a few days’ rest before attending to business. Giustiniani spent fifty days in November and December on the road from Toulouse to Madrid, and died soon after his arrival (February 3, 1660). "No private purse,” says a Venetian, " is long enough to follow the king to the country.” Not a scrap of food but cost three or four times as much as in Italy. The journey to Madrid alone swallowed up the supplies of a whole year (1624). In winter the vehicles often passed the. night in the fields ‘ snowed up.’ ” "Whoever wants to try his patience — ” says the same Venetian — “ let him come here ; he will find more proficiency made in it than in a Franciscan Convent.” But for an artist the worst of all, as seems to us, were the interminable harassing worries connected with the financial chaos of the royal house- hold. The coffers are empty, and payment suspended, whereupon the underlings strike work ! The denizens of the royal apartments freeze for want of fuel to heat the stoves. The Court dames must send round the corner for provisions, or go supperless to bed. People go about in Administration of the Galleries. 375 tatters, and the jobbing tailor to his Catholic Majesty no doubt does a roaring trade amongst his courtiers. The inevitable result were debts, and on one occasion our aposentador complains that sixty thousand reals of his yearly stipends were owing, thirty thousand for 1653 alone. But such carking cares were no doubt mitigated by the Spaniard’s proverbial heedlessness in financial matters. At Velazquez’ death, however, it was found that he had seriously overdrawn his account, his office of palace marshal being saddled with a debt of one million two hundred and twenty thousand seven hundred and seventy maravedis, say £y 30. The consequence was that the mayordomo mayor put the seal on his effects, and what that meant may easily be imagined from the foregoing description. After five years’ continuous investigation it appeared he had on his part some heavy claims on the Treasury, and the sentence was that half of the debts should be regarded as effaced by his personal estate ; but the other half had to be made good by Velazquez’ son-in-law and executor, Juan Bautista del Mazo, encumbered though he was with a large family (March 3, 1665). Thanks to this arrangement the sequestration was removed (April 11, 1666). Palomino justly remarks that this office would require a man’s whole time, and speaks on this point with a boldness that he would scarcely have ventured to indulge in under the old dynasty (p. 340 et seq.). He is, however, scarcely fair in blaming those who in this instance “ put the square block in a round hole.” He seems to have forgotten that it was Velazquez himself who petitioned for the office, stating that it was even suited to his “ genius.” He consequently was to blame for having thus paid tribute to his high birth. Palomino appears also to have had certain information respecting some honours, even higher than the marshal’s office and the Cross of Santiago itself, which the king had in store for him (pp. 341, 350). Administration of the Galleries. In his Description of the Escorinl (1681, p. 67) the Prior Francisco de los Santos tells us it was “ owing to Velazquez’ care that the roj'al palace, so far as regards its endowment of paintings, has become one of the greatest in the world.” Even before his appointment to the office of palace marshal he had superintended the somewhat frequent alterations in the mural adornments. The old Alcazar was a monument of his long-continued many-sided activity, and the inventories in the palace archives show the continual acquisitions and changes of collocation in the course of Philip IV.’s reign. The inventory for the year 1636 even enables us to 376 Velazquez. realize the state of some of the compartments as they were left by Philip III., as well as the transformations that had already been commenced. The inventory for 1666, which must be supplemented by that for 1686, contains the final results of the five-and-forty years’ government of the Art-loving sovereign. The last-mentioned inventory mentions altogether six hundred and fourteen originals and two hundred and ten copies ; more originals, remarks the author, Bernardo Ochoa, than any other sovereign could at that time boast of possessing. Purchases of new works rarely came within the province of the curators, although in this respect Velazquez’ reputation stood high. He was even consulted by the Italian diplomatists in Madrid ; Guidi, the Modenese envoy, placed full trust in him when treating for fourteen hunting-pieces by Paul de Vos from the estate of the Duke of Aerschot. In the third decade of the century Philip IV. had already begun some alterations in the Alcazar, especially with a view to more light, more room and convenience in the living apartments. Others, such as those of the summer quarter, were entirely rearranged, and adorned with a more choice collection of paintings. It is here that we first meet with the name of Rubens, who stood in these matters in the same relation to Philip IV. that Titian had to Philip II. The fourth decade was almost entirely occupied with the artistic equipment of Buen Retiro. Then followed the Tower in El Pardo, which absorbed most of Rubens’ productions. Lastly, after the completion of the Pantheon in the Escorial it seemed a royal duty again to give a thought to this “ Wonder of the World," which since the death of its .founder, Philip II., had been left to itself. Now, however, all the choice religious paintings of the Italian school that had been meantime acquired were removed thither and arranged by Velazquez. From the year 1656 the Sacristy of San Lorenzo took the foremost place amongst all the picture galleries belonging to the Spanish Crown. In consequence of these arrangements not many more works by our master were hung in the Alcazar, where nevertheless nearly all had been produced. The inventory of 1686 doubtless mentions no less than forty- three Velazquez ; amongst them however are many trivial things, such as antlers, sketches of horses with cavaliers and the like. All the equestrian portraits of the fourth decade, the Surrender of Breda, the Forge of Vulcan, the Water-Carrier and others were transferred to Buen Retiro. It is noteworthy that the inventories of the Alcazar for the Philip IV. period contain no reference to Zurbaran, Murillo, or the other great Andalusian painters, whose names are now most intimately associated The Cross of Santiago. 377 with the Spanish school. Ribera alone seems to have enjoyed this king’s favour, and of him as many as thirty-six works are mentioned, five of which were hung in the royal sleeping apartments. A man of Philip’s temperament must have found more pleasure in mythological subjects than in religious Art, with which he appears to have had little sympathy. Ribera’s now lost Jael and Delilah seem to have been the first works of this master that found their way to the Alcazar. Here the mythological section was by far the most interesting, repre- sented as it was by such consummate masters as Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese ; Rubens and Van Dyck ; Velazquez, Ribera and Artemisia Gentileschi. Probably nowhere else would it be possible so conveniently to compare the respective merits of these great artists in their different treatment of classic themes. The Cross of Santiago. The idea of knighting his Court painter never occurred to Philip IV. till the distinction had been earned by five-and-thirty years of faithful service. Thus it happened that our master enjoyed the privilege of wearing the red cross mantle for little over a twelvemonth. Possibly it had been a long coveted honour, for no higher but also no rarer distinction ever fell to the lot of a Spanish painter. How much more fortunate the Italians in this respect ! So seldom was the Cross conferred on a Spanish artist that Pacheco and Palomino are able to specify all the recorded instances. Tradition mentioned only a solitary case, that of Antonio Rincon, who had been made a Knight of Santiago by Ferdinand. Philip II., although a friend of painters, had never awarded the merced del hcibito to any of them ; but his successor favoured several Italians in this way to please the pope. During his first visit to Rome Velazquez had met two of these, Gio- vanni Baglione and Giuseppe Cesari, and had perhaps reported to Pacheco how the Santiago habit was not good enough for that vain Cavaliere d’Arpino, because others also had it, and how he had "mended ” it, that is, exchanged it for the gold chain and sword of St. Michael sent him by Louis XIII. And what a stir was made in 1625 when the Duke of Alcala obtained for Romolo Cincinnato the honour of painting Urban VIII. ; who rewarded the artist with the Order of Christ. Now Velazquez had also painted a pope, but had only received a medallion and gold chain. At that time there was only one Spanish painter that had been knighted, Jusepe Ribera, who had also received the papal Order of Christ. Possibly this lack of precedents was the reason why Philip put the matter off so long. But at last he remembered that Titian signed 378 Velazquez. himself Eques Ccescireus, having been ennobled by Charles V. ; and this would now be an opportunity of doing as the great emperor had done. The analogy could not be more striking, for of Velazquez also Olivares had said that he alone should paint the king, as Titian alone had to paint the emperor. And the Spanish master’s facilitas and felicitas could also be vaunted ; there were his equestrian statues in the Alcazar confronting Titian’s stupendous work, without having to shrink from such close proximity. In fact the Marquis of Malpica, as mayor-domo mayor , the most competent judge in such a question, had declared that his Majesty had but followed the example of Philip II. (meaning Charles V.) who had knighted Titian. The immediate occasion of the incident is not so clear. According to Palomino the king first broached the subject to Diego in the Escorial in the Holy Week of 1658, expressing his desire in this way to reward the artist’s talents, skill and varied services, and leaving the choice of the Order to him. The King of Spain was ex officio perpetual administrator of those of Alcantara, Calatrava, and Santiago. Velazquez chose the last named, and was duly installed after complying with the usual formalities and receiving the pope’s dispensation required by married laymen. According to the official documents 1 connected with the tedious preliminary process to prove irreproachable lives and spotless descent on both sides, the habit was conferred on him immediately after receipt of the papal brief on July 29, 1659. The Completion of the Escorial. In March 1654 the Court and province were thrown into a state of unusual excitement in connection with the solemn consecration of the sepulchral chapel in the Escorial and the consignment of the remains of the king’s ancestry to this national Pantheon. The erection of such a mausoleum had formed an essential part of the plans for Philip II.’s huge building. Yet this “ family vault ” was precisely the only part of the Escorial that had not been completed at the founder’s death, and had remained in this unfinished state for over half a century thereafter. In the year 1594 the remains of all the former members of the dynasty had been removed by Philip II. to St. Laurence and temporarily placed in the old Church. Their last resting-place was to be an octangular structure under the high altar, “ after the model of the 1 These documents, now in the Archivo historico nacional have been published by Villaamil in the Revista Europea (Madrid : 1874), ii., 39, 80, 105, 275, 402. Completion of the Escorial. 379 catacombs of the early Christians.” Its completion was prevented by unfortunate circumstances which could neither be foreseen nor prevented ; but the aged king’s intentions were sufficiently indicated in the remark that “ he had built a house to God ; let his son build one, if he will, for his bones and those of his parents.” Anyhow the chapel was “ secluded, gloomy, and dark, and of difficult access.” Hence between it and the floor of the Church a second provisional crypt was constructed disposed in three callejones , or vaulted galleries, and here the coffins remained till the year 1654. Philip III. did not remember his father’s wish till a few years before his end. When in Rome Cardinal Zapata had made the acquaintance of the young architect, Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, whom he induced to follow him to Madrid (1617), and to him the Pantheon owes its present form. According to his plans the floor was sunk five-and-half feet and the walls rebuilt of granite richly faced with marble, jasper, and bronze. Competent craftsmen were brought from Italy and the works proceeded apace as far as the cupola, which was also closed in soon after the accession of Philip IV. Then amid the layers of masonry was discovered a spring, which it was found impossible to drain off. The works came to a standstill, and it was even proposed to pull down the Pantheon and re-erect it elsewhere. At last, however, the local vicar, P. Fray Nicolas de Madrid, contrived in 1645 to draw off the water ; he also constructed a convenient flight of steps, and lit up the lunettes by means of a window let into the church wall. The ornamentation still required for the cupola was like- wise executed by two members of the religious community forming part of the Escorial, and thus, to the great relief of the king, the troublesome question of the Pantheon was at last brought to a successful issue. Friar Nicholas was rewarded by being made Prior and Bishop of Astorga. Before their removal the coffins were opened, when the body of Charles V. was found almost unchanged. The king and his suite entered the crypt on March 1 5, 1654, and the Venetian envoy, Quirini, afterwards wrote that “ the likeness of the emperor to his portrait could be recognized quite well. He had a rather full fair beard ; the body was under the average size, the bones thin, the flesh meagre and dried. Nose and lips, fingers and toes, were deformed by the gout which does not even spare the dead ; after a hundred years the marks were still visible of the sufferings he had endured.” In the middle of the Church five catafalques were erected, draped with gold-embroidered velvet and surmounted by crowns. In the first row 380 Velazquez. were Philip II. and Philip III., then the emperor more elevated, and lastly, next the altar, the four queens, Elizabeth of Portugal, Margaret of Austria, Elizabeth of Bourbon, and Ann of Austria. The ceremony produced a profound impression on Philip IV., now in his fiftieth year. The reflection that he too would ere long fill a niche in that Pantheon, and the remark of his Court theologians that it had been reserved for him to set the crown on Philip II.’s “eighth wonder,” awakened the desire to make further provision for San Lorenzo el Real. He decided to give the Church forty-one choice paintings, which during late years had come into his possession, mostly as gifts. They comprised works by such pre-eminent Italian masters as Raphael, Titian, Paolo Veronese, and Tintoretto, and nothing was more calculated than such a donation to enhance the splendour of the Escorial. “ His Majesty,” writes De los Santos, “ noticed that several places especially the sacristy, were poor in pictures, and he at once came to our aid by selecting a number of religious paintings from amongst those in his palace. By parting with them he gives a fresh and special proof of his love for this holy house, and shows how, in order to sumptuously adorn it, he will never hesitate, if necessary, to deprive his own mansion of its most costly contents.” Amongst the most valuable of these paintings were the four Don Luis de Haro had acquired at the sale of the effects of Charles I., King of England. These were the so-called Pearl of Raphael, for which the commissioner, Major Edward Bass, paid ,£2,000 on October 23, 1651 ; Andrea del Sarto’s Holy Family (Prado, No. 385, £230) ; Veronese’s Marriage of Cana (Prado, No. 534); and Tintoretto’s Washing of the Feet (Escorial, ,£250). When Parliament voted the sequestration and sale of the king’s effects (March 23, 1648), Spain had fortunately in Don Alonso de Cardenas a diplo- matist in London, who had managed from the first to keep on the best terms with the Parliamentarians. The Spanish ambassador, we are told in a contemporary document, 1 was the first to purchase these things ; he had acquired some from the timber-dealer, Harison, to the value of £500; from Murray, the tailor, and others, two paintings by Titian, a Venus, half-length, and the Jewellers for ,£50 (Belvedere, No. 5°8)- A cardinal seated and two old men behind him, by Tintoretto, ,£800. The government gave him the eleven Caesars by Titian, together with the twelfth painted by Van Dyck. Each of these had cost the king ;£ioo; Egerton Manuscripts , British Museum. Completion of the E scori al. 38i and ;£i 2,000 (?) had been offered him for them. 1 He possesses the famous Venus by Titian for which the king had been offered ^2,500. 2 So far the Egerton papers. There were also the Portrait of Charles V. with the large dog secured by Sir Balthasar Gerbier for ^150 on June 21, 1651 ; Titian’s Rest on the Flight to Egypt (Prado, No. 472) ; Palma’s Conversion of St. Paul (Prado, No. 325, £100); David with the Head of Goliath (Prado, No. 324, ;£ioo), and others, including altogether fifteen Titians, besides two Madonnas, and the twelve Caesars, which, according to the Florentine envoy, reached Madrid from London in September 1652. Philip, who after all was not destitute of feeling, may well have had his own thoughts about these effects of the unhappy prince, who had once been his guest in the Alcazar. For, strictly speaking, he was now appro- priating the property of the rightful heir to the throne of England. The followers of Charles Stuart and his son spoke bitterly at the time on the eagerness of the European princes to secure their share in the plunder, especially as the dispersion abroad removed all hope of later restitution. With a view to such restitution various royalists had in fact acquired many of the more valuable things. In the Spanish accounts also no mention is made of any direct participation of Philip in the transaction. It is distinctly stated that the pictures were purchased by, and consigned to, Don Luis de Haro, but then on their reaching Madrid it was discovered that they were worthy of being shown to the king, at whose feet Haro hastened to place them. That the public conscience was not quite clear in the matter appears also from the account given of it by Sir Edward Hyde (Lord Clarendon), who was in Madrid with Cottington as envoy of Charles II. when these treasures were landed at Coruna. In January 1651 they both received their passports, and learnt later the true reason of this step. It was not thought desirable that they should be eye-witnesses when the effects of their sovereign were being transferred to the royal palace in Madrid. 3 The arrangement of the forty-one paintings was entrusted to Velazquez, and the chief place chosen for their reception was the beautiful sacristy, which was a hundred and eight by thirty feet, and which was lighted by nine high windows above the mouldings running along the left side. No 1 Walpole, however ( Anecdotes ii.), states that the ambassador paid £1,200 for these. 2 This is the Venus with the Organ-player now in the Prado, No. 1651. 3 Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion , vi., 457, Oxford ed., 1826. 382 Velazquez. more advantageous site could have been selected. Siguenza, Prior of the Monastery under Philipp II., declares, that he felt his heart enlarged every time he entered the sacristy. The place of honour over the high altar was assigned to Raphael’s Pearl. But despite all these splendours, the sacristy was eclipsed by the Aula de Sta. Escritura, where the monks received instruction in divinity. Here had already been hung Titian’s famous Gloria; the two large pieces that Veronese and Tintoretto had painted for the high altar of the principal church (Annunciation and Nativity) ; Titian’s large Sf. Margaret with the Dragon and Penitent St. Jerome; El Mudo’s last work, the Burial of St. Laurence. To these were now added, as gifts from the king, Raphael’s Madonna with Tobias, the finest work by this master ever possessed by Spain, and still the true gem of the Madrid collection ; an Entombment of Christ, and an Ecce Homo by Titian ; Christ in the Vestibule, and the Martyrdom of St. Gines by Veronese. The majority of all these works have migrated in the present century to the Madrid Prado Museum; some have disappeared or have gone abroad, and but few now remain in the Escorial. The vacant spaces have been filled by a somewhat pitiful collection of works scraped together from various quarters. The “ Memoria.” It had long been known that Velazquez had also wielded the pen. Palomino, after stating (iii., 343) that the king had charged him in 1656 with the arrangement of the pictures removed to the Escorial, adds : “ Of these Velazquez composed a description, or Memoria, in which he gives particulars on their excellence, history, authors, and on the place where they were hung, in order to explain ( manifestar ) them to His Majesty, and with so much elegance and propriety, that the document is a proof of his learning and of his great judgment ; for so important are these paintings, that properly speaking he alone could give them their due praise.” Although this was the only known allusion to the document, still it was probable enough that it might be hidden away in some of the royal archives, as in fact had been suggested by Stirling-Maxwell. And so it happened that in 1871 the Art world was surprised by the announce- ment that Adolfo de Castro of Cadiz had succeeded in discovering the Memoria, but, strange to say, in printed form. From this solitary copy it was re-issued by Cahete in the Memorias of the Spanish Academy for August 1872, and again in Paris in 1874 by Ch. Davillier, with a The “ Memoria.” 383 French translation, notes, and an etched portrait of the painter by Fortuny. 1 It consists of two parts, respectively describing the new pictures and their arrangement in the Escorial, thirty-two pages altogether. The joy of Velazquez’ friends at the “ find ” was somewhat damped by the discovery that the booklet contained next to nothing new either in form or contents. Fray Francisco de los Santos had already in his Short Description of the Monastery of San Lorenzo el Real (1657) embodied the whole document without acknowledgment, but so skilfully that nobody had hitherto detected the traces of a second hand. The pamphlet itself was not printed by Velazquez, but by his pupil and admirer Don Juan de Alfaro of Cordova then eighteen years old, impelled thereto by zeal for his master’s literary reputation, which seemed to be imperilled by De los Santos’ plagiarism. In his youthful impatience to save the time required to obtain a proper imprimatur, he appears to have hit upon the device of putting Rome and an imaginary printing office on the title-page. Alfaro’s object, however, failed completely, at least so far as concerned posterity for the next two hundred years. The booklet rapidly vanished, nor has a single reference to its existence hitherto been discovered in Palomino or elsewhere. Thus the Memoria remained entirely forgotten till, as the fortunate discoverer remarks, “ this profound silence of nearly two centuries has at last been broken by Don Pedro Madrazo.” But even before Madrazo’s allusion (1870), Stirling-Maxwell had already in 1848 not only mentioned the Memoria, but had suggested that it “ probably had guided De los Santos in his Description of the Escorial ” (. Annals ii., 654). Had this shrewd Scottish writer pushed the matter a little farther, had he simply picked out the passages in De los Santos’ book referring to those forty-one paintings, omitting a few theological sentences and arranging everything in its most natural order, he might have given us the Memoria pretty much as it has been discovered by De Castro. When it is remembered that De Castro forgets to specify the place where his unique copy came to light, may it not be suggested that Stirling-Maxwell’s hint may not after all have fallen on barren soil? If taken up and acted upon by a clever “ manufacturer,” it would certainly be quite possible to 1 The original title ran : Memoria / de las pinturas / que la magestad Catho / lica del Rey nuestro Senor Don Philipe / IV. embia al Monsterio . . . del Escurial este ano de M.D.C. LVI. / descriptas ycolocadas / por Diego de Sylva Velazquez, — — la ofreece, dedica y consagra / a la Posteridad / D. Juan de Alfaro / Impresa en Roma, en la Oficina de Ludouico / Grignano, ano de M.D.C. LVIII. 16 Bl. 8°- 3§ 4 Velazquez. produce such a document as this, and on such a supposition many difficulties surrounding it would admit of easy explanation. It may also be more than a mere coincidence that another of De Castro’s finds, Calderon’s Buscapie , 1 proved a mare’s nest, so that one feels inclined to exclaim : Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Anyhow, the strong feeling of indignation against the “ usurper,” De los Santos, displayed by the Spanish academicians at the reading of the document, and the corresponding laudation of Velazquez as a master of style and so forth, may }^et have to be moderated. De los Santos’ Description received the privilege on October 15, 1656 ; and the manu- script must consequently have been already for some time in the hands of the censors of the Press, as this was always a somewhat lengthy process. The printing of the work must have also been completed before March 20, 1657, when its agreement with the “copy” was certified by the censors. But a folio volume of one hundred and eighty-four sheets is not struck off “between sunrise and sunset.” Hence this book must have been completed in all essentials about the time its author could have seen the Memoria, which could not have been drawn up before 1656, when Velazquez superintended the removal of the forty-one paintings and their arrangement in the Escorial. De los Santos must have con- sequently at the last moment appropriated the contents of the Memoria , and even taken the time to foist into the text those theological passages after his own taste, by which it is interlarded. And he must have done all this with such literary skill that, as already observed, the fraud remained unsuspected till the De Castro find. That this monk availed himself of the aid of specialists, especially in the artistic sections, was natural enough ; nor did he make any secret of it, for in the prologue he acknowledges his indebtedness in these respects not to one but to several competent persons : a point which De Castro has again overlooked. But, assuming his appropriation of the very words of the Memoria , it might still be argued that its author’s name was not mentioned, with the consent, and even at the request, of Velazquez himself, literary work being at that time held rather in contempt by the Spanish nobility. Anjffiow, it seems scarcely credible that De los Santos, who was also Court chaplain, would have in this matter done anything likely to offend the king and his highly- favoured palace marshal, both of whom must have at once become aware of the plunder. But on the other hand how could Velazquez have immediately afterwards 1 Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, iii., 404. The “ Memoria. 385 sanctioned Alfaro’s issue of the Memoria bearing his own name on the title-page, and avowedly published to expose the monk’s literary theft ? And then, after the appearance of the Memoria in print, which furnished everybody with a proof of the assumed plagiarism, how could De los Santos in later editions of his work avoid some explanation or palliation of his previous silence ? An excellent opportunity for such an explanation pre- sented itself in the edition of 1681, where he had to describe Velazquez’ picture of Joseph’s Coat, which Philip IV. had in his lifetime destined for the Escorial. In connection with this matter De los Santos took occa- sion to make the following highly laudatory reference to the Court painter : “ Philip IV. honoured Velazquez on account of his excellent qualities and faithful service. The Escorial, no less than the royal palace [the Alcazar], is indebted to his efforts that it is as remarkable for its paintings as it is for its architecture. It was Velazquez who fitted up the sacristy, the aulilla and the priory chapter-house ; nay, the very paintings with which he adorned these places were by himself brought together from various parts of Europe. He was a man of excellent taste and judgment, especially in portraits ; but in this painting we see that he was not less so in all that he took in hand.” Here it may be asked, Why does he forbear to add : “ . . . excellent even when he exchanged the brush for the pen , for we have ourselves to thank him for some valuable suggestions for this book," etc. Scarcely any discovery in Art literature has ever been hailed with more expectations than this commentary by Velazquez on Italian paintings. It ought to possess a higher interest than could be claimed for the rarest relics or curios ; for here we might learn how the Titians, Correggios, Raphaels, Andrea del Sartos, appealed to the understanding of such an artist, that is to say, an artist who for nearly forty years was daily conversant with the pictorial treasures of the Spanish Crown, and who had made two journeys to Italy for the purpose of studying and collecting such works. The purpose of the Memoria was to make a sort of Catalogue Raisonne, or descriptive inventory, of the forty-one paintings arid of their distribution over the new space assigned to them in the Escorial. But it is not made quite clear which were precisely these forty-one works. First and foremost come twenty-four, most in the order in which they had been received by the king ; then follows their arrangement in their new home jointly with that of the others and of some few already in the Escorial. Thus it is not always possible to make out which are the new arrivals, and in point of fact five of the very finest are not mentioned at all, because they had not yet been hung. 2 5 3 86 Velazquez. To the twenty-four in question are devoted brief notices, varying from three to twenty-five lines, rapid sketches of the composition interwoven with still more laconic remarks on their excellent qualities. The tone of these notes is laudatory, even enthusiastic and solemn. The terminology em- ployed in the characterization is more aesthetic than artistic ; it deals more with the impression produced especially on devout temperaments than with the distinct qualities of the representation. As regards the form of the Memoria, the Court painter shows himself curiously indifferent to the official formalities customary in such documents. He begins the report somewhat cavalierly, without so much as an address to the exalted person from whom he has received his commission, without even mentioning the commission itself which he is about to discharge. Instead of the name of Philip IV., as one should expect, we find that of Charles Stuart, King of England, who had been executed eight years previously. The author thus rushes in medias res quite after the manner of a modern essayist, who seeks at once to rivet the reader’s attention by some sensational remark. What he should have introduced at the opening is reserved for the conclusion, where we read : “ His Majesty, noticing that some places [in the Escorial] were too poorly furnished with paintings, lost no time ' in making good the defect — a foresight doubtless on the part of his grandfather. For if the latter in his great piety undertook the erection of this wonderful and holy work, he still left abundance of space unoccupied, so that by adorning and enriching it the royal spirit of his grandson might induce his monks in becoming gratitude constantly to pray God for the blessing and prolonging of such a valuable life.” Such fulsomeness may have accorded with the official style of the period ; but even De los Santos found it desirable to considerably tone it down in his own work. Thus Court chaplain and Court painter seemed to have here changed places. The former writes simply and to the point, the latter in the absurdly inflated style of Byzantine adulat'on. All this is surely sufficient to justify one’s doubts as to the authenticity of the Memoria. EIGHTH BOOK WORKS OF THE THIRD AND LAST PERIOD. 1651 — 1660. THE THIRD STYLE — QUEEN MARIANA OF AUSTRIA — THE INFANTA MARIA THERESA — THE PRINCESS MARGARET — THE INFAN.T DON PHILIP PROSPER LAST PORTRAITS OF PHILIP IV. THE FAMILY PORTRAIT — VELAZQUEZ’ FAMILY PORTRAITS OF VELAZQUEZ — THE SPINNERS — DWARFS, BUFFOONS, AND JESTERS THE DWARFS IDIOTS AND IMBECILES THE PHILOSOPHERS THE UGLY IN ART — MYTHOLOGIES RELIGIOUS PAINTINGS OF THE LAST PERIOD — THE JOURNEY TO THE PYRENEES THE END — VELAZQUEZ’ SUCCESSORS. -> The Third Style. ROM the works of the last decade is derived the current notion of the so-called third style, a style which is often alone meant in speaking of Velazquez’s manner. Nor is this popular view altogether wrong; for the style in question is in a measure merely the last phase, the full ripeness of an Art fundamentally one, though continuously developed by ever-increasing command of technique and more and more perfect vision. Facility, elegance, spirit are not precisely the qualities one expects to find in youthful force and fire. Nevertheless even in his earliest works Velazquez already shows himself a firm, broad delineator; and the Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand, who quitted Spain in 1632, even at that time vaunted his rapidity as a special characteristic. But what is this third style ? One might reply his principle was to produce the greatest effect with the least expenditure of means and time ; or that here the fundamental laws of draughtsmanship are seriously attended to, painting what one really sees, not what one fancies one sees or infers ; or again coloured light effects carried to the point of optical delusion. But the less we can measure or grasp this special object of painting, the more delicate and steady must be the hand that precipitates and crystallizes the mental picture. Hence the broadness of treatment, the artist working with a full grasp of the general impression ; hence also the incalculable nature of the touches inspired by the subtle optic feeling of the moment. Of the many qualities of Velazquez’ works none has been so early and so frequently dwelt upon as the free, unclouded touch of his brush. Boschini, himself a Venetian, already noticed in Innocent X.’s portrait el vero colpo Venetian (“the true Venetian touch”); Richardson called attention to la grande varietc de teintes couchees scparcment sans ctre noyces ensemble ; and it was this that Mengs had in his mind when he said of a picture that it seemed painted with the will alone. Others overstrained the point when they declared each stroke of the brush might be counted, adding somewhat inconsistently that close at hand 390 Velazquez. all else was chaos — that forms, figures, general design could be distinguished only at a distance. This property has also been called the spirit of his brush. But in painting what is meant by spirit ? In the plastic Arts those are for the most part wholly destitute of spirit who possess it in language and thoughts — thoughts, that is, in the sense in which allegory and caricature, or programme painting may be said specially to possess them. “ Trust not those," said Diderot, " who have their sack full of spirit, which they scatter about on all occasions. They lack the demon” — the "fine frenzy," that is to say, —that from the bow that spans the sky Brings colours clipp’d in heaven that never die. Rembrandt, Correggio, Titian, Murillo, were spirited painters, not because they possessed spirited imaginings, or gave scribblers material for declamation and essays, but because they had spirit in glance and finger. True spirit, genius, is pregnant and unexpected expression, such expression as even masters themselves confess would not have occurred to them ; genius those possess who see what the “ profane ” cannot see, those of whom it cannot be foreseen how they will treat a given theme, those consequently who, as Kant says, do things that may not be reduced to rule and .measure. If Velazquez’ works, like the plays of his contemporary Calderon, often look unfinished or improvised, we should greatly err were we to suppose them less thoroughly studied before being rapidly executed than other more finished compositions ; or were we to fancy that the artist’s intention has not been fully realized with these summary and. casual means. It is precisely from the clearness of purpose, from the vivid inward impression that flows the firmness of hand, that with such apparently irregular processes so rapidly and effectively says what it has to say. “ Velazquez," says Richard Ford, “ never put brush to canvas without an intention and meaning.” Insipid platitude alone could have held these paintings to be mere sketches, or even decorative pieces, thus proclaiming Velazquez to be “the first scenic painter of his time.” "His style,” says an authority of high repute, " was all that an artist could presume upon in the matter of bold licence, who trusted in his genius and felt sure of the blind and thoughtless success reserved for the products of his brush . . . All these works executed between 1652 and 1660 are purely and simply rough drafts ( ebauches ).” 1 P. Madrazo in L'Art, 1878, iv. The Third Style. 39i Thus the lowering of this master from his place of honour is here based on what was elsewhere regarded as his special and inimitable characteristic. As if breadth and well-calculated perspective could trans- form a painting to a decorative piece ! As if the distinctive mark of the latter did not lie in invention ! A sketch is a preparatory painting, whether it be on a reduced scale to fix and test the motive, or a dead colouring preliminary to the application of the finer touches and local colours. But it would be as unjust to call a Franz Hals a sketch, as, for instance, a Holbein. In fact it simply comes to this, that with a few light touches Velazquez contrived to give his figures life and character, substance and proportion. “ Where another thinks he has made a beginning,” says Charles Blanc, “ Velazquez considers he has given the last touch. He has scarcely grazed (effleure) nature, and he already grasps, possesses, represents her, and in doing so endows her with a second life.” At the same time it is true enough that no one better understood the rare Art of “ preserving the sketch,” that is to say, of retaining to the last, throughout the tedious piecemeal execution, the first impression in its full unimpaired vividness. For what to non-professionals seems easiest is in truth the hardest ; as Lemoine said after Diderot, “ thirty years of practice are needed to preserve one’s sketch.” It was equally beside the mark to call Velazquez a virtuoso , 1 if at least by virtuosity is meant a mere facility and elegance combined with an ostentatious display of technical difficulties, artistically of slight value. Those painters might more justly be called virtuosi, for whom the subject means merely an opportunity of repeating with more or less new varia- tions their cut-and-dry processes. In this sense the virtuoso is the reverse of the true artist, such as Velazquez, who adapted his technical •methods to his subject, not his subject to his methods. So little did he possess of the virtuoso's assurance, that scarcely one of his paintings but shows signs of revision ; and so indifferent was he to polished elegance that he scarcely concealed such retouches. Everything savouring of effect, that effect which the habitues and epicures sniff from afar, he so thoroughly despised that he at times seemed rather anxious to repel than to court favour. Doubtless this manner was in a measure due to the artist’s southern temperament, alien to tedious painstaking. His appreciation of the main effect and disregard of details also caused him occasionally to employ those long-handled brushes of which Palomino speaks, and which enabled 1 Kolnische Zeitung, February 8, 1874. 392 Velazquez. him to work from the distance at which the picture was to be beheld. Nor should his limited time and official duties in later years be forgotten. But the deeper reason, as well as the artistic worth of this manera golpeada, lay after all in his optical observations. We know that a certain class of phenomena stand out better and clearer from the painted surface if the blend of touch and colour be left to the retina of the eye. Brucke has shown how, at the point of transition from the separate lines and patches to the commingling of the whole in a perfectly uniform tone and in the consequent uncertainty, the impression of flatness yields to that of relief . 1 It is precisely on this property that depends that inimitable “sparkle and vivacity,” which Wilkie was the first to notice, and which is peculiar to this master. Heiein lies the most striking difference between the paintings of Velazquez and Titian. The startling vividness of his figures, which at times seem not merely to stand out, but actually to move, leads to a consideration of his technique, which has been pronounced unfathomable. “ This artist is a fairy,” remarks Thore, “who conjures up all manner of apparitions, it might seem instantaneously, but in reality by mysterious spells of which no one possesses the secret.” In this case, the difficulty of the analysis is enhanced by the change in his methods, not only in the sequences of the so-called periods, but even in works of the same period, and even in works of identical nature, such as the equestrian portraits. It may be asserted in general that all great painters, not only Van Eyck and the Italians of the golden age, but also the bold Dutch colourists of the seventeenth century, possessed a very solid technique capable of resisting change and decomposition. The Caracci, the first to fail in this respect, were also minor lights in higher things, as, for instance, in invention. Everything leads to the inference that Velazquez paid special attention even to the priming, being careful to see that it was absorbed to the utmost by the canvas. When Palomino says that the thinner the priming or the more the tissue of the canvas is seen, the clearer, firmer and more durable will be the painting, he appears to base his statement on a tradition going back to Velazquez. At least other Spanish painters, such as Murillo and Ribera, were partial to a thick priming, the latter to the detriment of his works, while most of Velazquez’ paintings are remarkable for the thinness of the first coating. The limpidity and resisting power of the colours seem in fact to be connected with this 1 Die Physiologie der Farben, 285. The Third Style. 393 peculiarity, as seen precisely in our master’s most admirable works — Prince Balthasar on Horseback, the Meninas, the Anchorites. The durability of these works is also due to his avoidance of dark grounds, especially those of ochre, which so often come gratingly to the surface after the applied colours have dried. In his early works alone occasionally occur those broad, dull, brick-red surfaces, by which the productions of the Bolognese school are disfigured. Later he appears to have mainly employed a white ground, to which the old Flemings also were indebted for their richness of colour. As in the treatment of the ground, economy is also the rule in the use of his pigments. He evidently strove to produce all necessary gradations with the fewest possible colours and blends. The tones were probably already prepared on the palette according to his requirements, so that he had no need to work them up on the canvas. Thanks to these several expedients his colours have neither become dark nor cracked, nor otherwise impaired, as happens to those less skilfully manipulated. This manera golpeada, however, was by no means rigidly adhered to throughout. It was always “a little more or less,” here and there disappearing altogether, according to the nature of the subject. Velazquez’ Art is thereby distinguished from Titian’s later manner, as well as from that of Franz Hals. Probably it was his perfect command of the brush that Beule had in view, when he called Velazquez “ the greatest of colourists.” If, how- ever, we are to understand by this expression a painter who lays most stress on vigour, beauty and harmony of colour, he can scarcely be called a colourist at all. Nor was he strictly speaking a tone painter, and the fact that he worked almost exclusively with opaque pigments shows that intensity of colour had no charm for him — was perhaps even anti- pathetic. At the same time he had a very definite feeling for colour. Certain tones and juxtapositions pervade all his works from the earliest to the latest. It was a sombre, almost gloomy feeling, and so far betrayed a national taste, although Spanish writers of the seventeenth century ascribe to their countrymen a preference for beautiful colours. Don Juan of Austria, seeing some paintings in Brussels put on one side, inquired as to their destination, and was told they were going to Spain, where most of the upper classes "have more taste for fine colours than for Art” ( Jnscpe Martinez). But amongst Velazquez’ favourite tones there is scarcely a single 394 Velazquez. bright, pure colour ; all are mostly cold and broken. The only warm colour he occasionally applied in surcharged brilliancy (in the Innocent X. it is predominant) was the crimson red, which at least has a character of princely splendour. In his portraits red may perhaps occupy the largest space ; but it occurs nearly always in the sombre transitions towards blue, cool rose down to the deepest purple. His cobalt blue in sky, vistas and draperies inclines to green ; light blue and light green he scarcely uses at all, while the green of his foliage has a dusty tone like the leaves of the olive tree. For brown he is partial to a faint orange ; but on the other hand that luminous brown which plays so large a part in Rembrandt’s shadows is doled out with extreme parsimony. Although Velazquez studied the Venetians so thoroughly, he never imitated their manner of enhancing the warm tone of the flesh by the white of the collar and by the saturated colours of the surroundings. On these and such like observations Charles Blanc founds the hasty judgment that our master did not understand the chromatic scale, and showed a tendency towards monochrome. Wilkie also, while admitting that “ he is as fine, in some instances, in colour as Titian, still regards this as “ his weak point, being most frequently cold, black and without trans- parency.” 1 Those hit the mark better who asserted that he combined the charm of a colourist with extreme sobriety of colour, and that this was his rare merit. In his last masterpieces Velazquez was much occupied with the study of light effects in interiors. But what in this respect has more than aught else earned for him the attention and esteem of modern painters, a feature in which he has no rival, is the presentment of the subject in the all-diffused reflected daylight with the contrast of warm and cold masses. With Titian he has in common the modelling in a full light ; but his tone differs greatly from that of the Venetians, who painted countenance and the nude in a warm middle tone, keeping in abeyance the grey reflected tones and white lightg. The Spaniard acts on the observation that the cool grey tints in the skin predominate ; his carnations are truer, although they appeal less to the senses than those of the Venetians, or than Rubens’ fiery colours with their reflected luminosities ; here Velazquez is more akin perhaps to Franz Hals. A technique such as that of our master is not made for imitators. Yet connoisseurs have been too often deceived by studies and copies. They looked too much to the outward features, the tone and the touch ; 1 Cunningham’s Life of Wilkie, Letters of October 29, 1827, and February 14, 1828. Mariana of Austria. 395 but the inimitable never lies in externals, but in the grasp and depth of knowledge, vision and capacity. Genuine works always possess certain characteristics, which are never found in imitations. Such are the unvarying nature of the colours, with which is connected the clearness of the distribution in space ; further, the freshness of the flesh-tints, the tender- ness of the transparent skin and its delicate shimmer, such as Mengs admired in the head of Philip IV. on horseback. Estimable and even brilliant painters in France, Spain, and Germany have in recent times studied Velazquez with happy results. But for others his cult has proved disastrous. Lacking his fine eye and methodic knowledge, without clearly perceiving what he precisely aimed at, they mistook for the heart and soul of his painting, what for him was merely a means to the end. They thought they had nothing to do but flourish the brush in a slap-dash manner, to select the vilest models, to aim at effect from a distance, their performances being even less intelligible at a distance than close at hand. Old and young, small and great, O the gruesome rabble ! None will the cobbler’s fate, But all in po’try dabble . 1 Queen Mariana of Austria. After the exhaustive struggle with the Netherlands the king, who since 1640 had been sorely tried by public and domestic calamities, began once more to hope for better days. Within the decade he had lost his queen, his son, his brother Ferdinand and sister Mary. For a moment he stood alone ; but now on the verge of old age he saw himself again the centre of a widening family circle, a young queen, a darling little daughter and later even sons, the hope of the great monarchy. For well-nigh half a century the image of Mariana of Austria flits continuously across the scene in the Spanish ancestral halls — first as a fresh bride, a child-wife, last in the widow’s veil ; in this position bequeathed as it were by Velazquez to his official heirs, Mazo, Carreno and Coello. Mariana, born in 1635, was the daughter of the Emperor Ferdi- nand III., and of Philip’s much beloved sister Mary, who twenty } - ears previously had gone as a bride to Vienna. And now, in the language of Calderon, this gift had been returned by Germany to Spain. After the sudden death of Prince Balthasar, Mariana’s betrothed and 1 Goethe. 396 Velazquez. heir to the crown, the Cortes clamoured for a second royal marriage, and the king hastily resolved to step into his son’s place. There were not wanting those who regarded this alliance as highly unseemly, fore- boding no good results. Even in Spain it was known that marriages between such kindred were seldom blest. Six months had not elapsed since Balthasar’s death (October 9, 1646), before the contract was duly signed in Pressburg (April 2, 1647), the betrothal following next year by proxy in Vienna. But the bride was detained in Trent till the spring of 1649, pending the arrival of her suite in Milan. No journey of a Spanish queen had ever been beset by so many obstacles and even financial difficulties ; and thus it happened that two years and a half were consumed before Mariana now in her fourteenth year was received by Philip, thirty years her senior, in Navalcarnero, where the marriage was solemnized by the Archbishop of Toledo. But her reception in the capital was to show once more what this ancient land of Spain was capable of. “ The Court,” wrote Basadonna, “wished to let it be seen that it could still accomplish wonders while everyone supposed that it lay prostrate on the ground.” All the expenses, however, had to be paid by the city, and this good disposition and steadfast devotion to the royal house seemed to the Venetian envoy the greatest wonder of all. The entry took place on a bright November day, headed by the German, Flemish, and Spanish bodyguards — three hundred and fifty men all in velvet livery ; then the heralds ; two hundred riders ; the grandees with numerous pages and retainers, followed by the ladies — twelve mounted, the rest in coaches. The thoroughfares with their five magni- ficent triumphal arches, 1 the rich hangings, banners, painted sargas, tapestries and pictures, were compared by an eye-witness to a cathedral nave in its festive array. The queen was welcomed at the gate by the fifty-two regidors (aldermen) of Madrid in gold brocaded robes, the king standing on a balcony of the neighbouring Lerma Palace. To Clarendon he appeared still vigorous although betraying evident traces of his early habits. At the grand masked tournament he once more earned the loud applause of the spectators ; he was still the first horseman in the kingdom. And the object of all these festivities was a mere girl, a sill}', wayward 1 These ephemeral structures cost twenty-five thousand crowns each ; their size and noble style were highly praised and the one erected in the Prado was attributed to Alonso Cano. Mariana of Austria. 397 little creature, whose flat features, where the light of reason still slum- bered, showed no signs of beauty, nothing striking, except the family expression about the mouth. But thanks to her extreme youth observers noticed chiefly her fresh complexion, fair hair and clear blue eyes. The camarera mayor (first lady-in-waiting) had no easy task to wean her from her simple, hearty German ways. When told a Queen of Spain should not laugh so loud at the jokes of the. Court dwarf, “Then let this irresistible jester be removed altogether,” she would exclaim; and might also have added, “And why should majesty be inseparably tied to these buffoons at all ? ” Her amuse- ments were altogether none of the most intellectual. During the Carnival of 1651 a lot of mice were let loose amongst the Court ladies, and the orginator of this practical joke was richly rewarded. Philip, who had neglected the amiable, intelligent and even more beautiful Isabella, now paid assi- duous court to this insignificant doll with the tenderness of old age ; he even became a faithful husband, for everything hence- forth depended on securing an heir to the throne. To this royal devotion posterity is indebted for her numerous portraits. Such was the king’s impatience that, without waiting the return of Velazquez from Italy, he gave the first commission to his son-in-law, Juan Bautista del Mazo. This artist, putting forth all his strength, produced such a striking likeness of the queen that it made his fortune. Palomino, who saw the picture exhibited at the Guadalajara Gate on a feast of Corpus Christi, pronounced it a marvel of the brush (iii., 372). The three portraits in the Madrid Museum do not date from this first period, those painted by Velazquez immediately after his return having apparently been sent to Vienna. Since her departure from her imperial home the young bride had favourably developed during the long journey to Spain, and now she was all eagerness to let her Vienna friends see how she looked in the stupendous costume of the Spanish Court. 39 § Velazquez. Her finest and most interesting portrait, which has recently come to light at Vienna, agrees in almost every particular with the picture pre- served in the Belvedere (No. 617) since 1824. 1 The sparkle of the blue eyes is charming ; but in the latter the eyes are duller, the modelling in very clear flesh tints less pure and firm. It is surprising how a being so little favoured by the Graces and the Muses can please the eye merely by her youth and health. She seems radiant with the first rapture of those festivities which were kept up without interruption in her honour. The first feeling caused by these portraits is perhaps one of amaze- ment at the head-dress and attire. A new feminine fashion had been introduced in the second half of the fifth decade. The hitherto still effective motive of height was now completely discarded for a style that aimed at breadth, the horizontal line being carried out with a con- sistency which challenged good taste with unheard-of hardihood. The lofty top-knot and the bunchy arrangement of the side locks went by the board, and the wig, hitherto an occasional device, now became indispensable, for to build up the structure with the natural hair alone was of course no longer possible. The false hair of silk or wool (cabellos postizos, monos) was brushed smooth down, and then on both sides tressed with horrid regularity in five or six vertical ringlets disposed with perfect symmetry, decked with ribbons, rosettes and jewels, and cut horizontally even with the chin. A row of six glittering pen- dants thus came to look like so many earrings, while the fabric finished off behind with large ostrich feathers above this head-dress, the whole producing the general effect of an open shrine. From under the light- coloured wig the natural hair peeps out, as, for instance, in the wide lock on the brow. When the gown is cut low the hem also runs in a horizontal line round bosom and shoulders, and the neck-chains are similarly arranged. The narrow, straight bodice with its wedge-shaped peak fits into the enormous hooped gown, which, formerly of conical shape, now assumed more and more the cylindrical form. The total suppression of the natural outline was now followed by an amazing inflation, the single hoop which 1 This new specimen, which does not appear in the catalogue for 1881, bears with the other the name of Maria Theresa, Mariana’s stepdaughter. Nor is there any information available as to how the portraits reached Vienna. The Modenese Count Ottonelli, however, relates that in February, 1653, the Marquis Mattei, the archduke’s envoy, went to Flanders in order to hand over the portraits of the royal couple and of the infanta: “I believe to foster in him the hope of a marriage with the said most serene infanta .” — ( Despatch of February 22, 1653, in Modena.) Mariana of Austria. 399 sufficed in the first half of the century being now supplemented by two or three more, at first of esparto grass, later of brass wire covered with linen. Thus the skirt passed gradually from the shape of a bell to that of a clothes-horse. In these skirts, which were called guardainf antes , the ladies flattered themselves they looked more interesting and coquettish; they also pretended that these gowns were more comfortable, allowing plenty of room for wide flowing underclothing. The hands in walking rested on them as on the front of balcony- seats, and as the play-bill and gloves are placed on these, in the same way those "crinolines” were made receptacles for watches, little mirrors and portraits. Such a dame appropriated her side of the coach all to herself ; she had to squeeze through the doorways, and was charged double price by the managers of theatres. The other articles of the costume also acquired proportionately imposing dimensions ; the pocket handkerchief looked like a table-cloth ; the tulle collar covered nearly half the bosom ; the necklaces, and even the gold setting of the jewels became thick and heavy. The feet of course disappeared altogether. All that remained of the natural Eve was then coated with loud colours, not only face, eye-lids and earlobes, but shoulders and hands ; this rouge, however, was more of a mask than an adornment. To foreigners, such as the ladies of the Court of Louis XIV., this fashion seemed ridiculous, even revolting, and a positive grief to friends. When it was first seen in Rome at the time of the arrival of the Neapolitan viceroy, the Duke of Arcos, it excited derision, and even gave offence. “ Rome,” wrote Ameyden, " stands aghast at the vile and offensive Spanish female dress, especially compared with past times when it was so becoming.” 1 It would be labour lost to ennoble such figures, or improve such barbaric costumes by pictorial devices. Here also Velazquez remained true to the Spanish taste, which softens nothing, and shrinks from no realities, however repulsive. On the other hand he achieved his purpose by the charm of a thoroughly spirited treatment, without shadows, and in a silver shimmering light. The white silk, the still more sparkling brilliants and pearls suited the clear complexion still further heightened by artificial means. The fair white and red of the cheeks with lilac half-tones was again reflected in the roses and diamonds of the hair, and the whole effect was improved by the contrast of the dark green curtain. In the hands of her camarera mayor, the Viennese princess soon adapted herself to her new surroundings. Under the constraint of Spanish etiquette 1 Diary , March 31, 1646. 400 Velazquez. her features became impressed with that haughty and wearied expression peculiar to Spanish royalty ; only in her case this was associated with a sour contraction of the mouth that betrayed her character. She was already called the “ stubborn and stiff-necked German.” The air of fretful weariness gives a look of age, so that in the two portraits where she faces the king the thirty years’ disparity is no longer so obvious. Thus she looks in the three large paintings in the Prado, which must belong to the master’s last years. She was twenty-five years old at his death, and these were probably the least attractive works he had ever to paint. The best seems to be the full-length single figure (No. 1078), which is repeated with all details in the picture (No. 1079), where she is grouped with her husband in armour. She wears a black gown with wide silver- embroidered band on bodice, lap and lower edge of the skirt. The rose curtain, chair, table with gilt clock on a greenish grey ground, are softened by a brownish half-tone. No difference in the brush can be detected ; only in No. 1078 the hands are more softly modelled, and the harmony a thought better. The same likeness was the original of the half-figure which was exhibited in Manchester, and which passed from the Hugh Baillie col- lection to Hercules B. Brabazon. In the Prado picture, No. 1082, where she kneels opposite the king at a broad prie-dieu , she seems older, the eyes looking sore. This figure is set off by a deep red ground enframed by a heavy curtain. The hands holding the book of Hours are somewhat awkwardly curved. The last royal couple was executed for the Escorial. Recently a remarkable portrait has come to light in Vienna (No. 618). It must have been painted shortly before the king’s death; and after that of Velazquez, from whose grasp of the subject and colour-sense it deviates altogether, but in this case not to its disadvantage. The rouge has vanished from her face, and the fiery red ribbons from her hair ; the delicate black lace trimming of the hems looks well on the light red quilted gown, which has again reverted to the round bell type. The warm amber tone of the reflected lights, here harmonizing with the forms of the full and still attractive figure, agrees admirably with the dusky gold brocaded red curtain behind. Over the eyes lies a tender gold tone like a veil, and with this accords a touch of melancholy. At Philip’s death his only son was four years old. Thus it happened that the regency fell to the least competent of Spanish queens, and her name was associated with the days of the deepest political degradation of the nation, which under her regime had to endure the «yils of petticoat and cowl government. And as after a brief interruption she now returned to Mariana of Austria. 401 power as an influential queen-mother, there is no lack of portraits in the solemn monastic garb of the queens-dowager. Mariana is nearly always portrayed seated in an armchair robed in black and white like an abbess, as in the portrait by Mazo in Castle Howard. Here she is taken in her thirty-third year as regent, without the inflated costume, jewels and pearls laid aside, cosmetics washed away, fair hair and slender neck for ever shrouded in the narrow widow’s head- covering and heavy black veil. Bright colours have disappeared even from the surroundings where the very flowers of the yellow curtain are black, and all else monotonously painted in a dull yellow and brown. The queen holds a letter on which we read the name Juan Bap ta - de Mazo (not Maino), and the date 1668. But what is the dancing faun doing here, with his grinning face half hidden behind the curtain ? On the left is seen a lighted chamber with a group like that of the Meninas. Here the prince, for whom she holds the helm of State, is surrounded by dwarfs and nuns, one of the latter holding him by the leading strings. A lady hands him a red cup. Mazo was followed as Court painter by Carreno, who painted the picture in the Harrach Gallery, Vienna, a present to the imperial ambassador, Ferdinand Bonaventura von Harrach, on his departure from Madrid in the year 1677. Here the eyes are sad, the mouth contracted as with weeping. The physiognomist would regard this as the picture of gloomy renunciation repelling all joy and sympathy ; but the chroniclers describe this devotee as an evil, maladroit woman, in whom mundane desires were by no means quenched. The Madrid exemplar is harder and colder, and here she is seated at a secretaire with a pensive air, her right hand resting on a document. A similar portrait with an expression of soft sadness was in the former National Gallery in Fomento. Thus she appears in Madame d’Aulnoy’s description during her banish- ment to Toledo, leaning against the balcony of a window in the Alcazar, that had been hastily prepared for her reception. Claudio Coello, last painter of the old period, also tried his art on this subject. At least the portrait of the widowed queen in the Munich Pinakothek (No. 1302) seems to me more like a work of Coello than of Carreno, to whom it has been ascribed since the visit of Don Francisco de Asis, husband of Isabella II. The head is the most repellent, the picture the most interesting of all. Mariana can scarcely any longer be recognized in this aged lady with the prayer-book, her arms resting on the armchair. But in the swollen features, the toothless mouth, the 26 402 Velazquez brutal chin, the scowling side-glance we detect a touch of senile restless- ness and malice. The Infanta Maria Theresa. After Prince Balthasar’s death (1646) Philip was left with an only child, his daughter, Maria Theresa, born on September 20, 1638. She was now heir-presumptive to the Spanish throne, and preparations were made for PRINCESS MARIA THERESA. the formal ceremony of homage. At her father’s second marriage with Mariana, three years her senior, she was in her eleventh year, and for twelve years these two young princesses, descendants of Ferdinand II. of Germany and Henry IV. of France, lived together in the same Court. At feasts and audiences they were often seen together, the infanta eclipsing her stepmother in charm and intelligence. During the festivities for the future queen's birthday (December 1647) she led the dance “with such vivacity and grace,” that she won the hearts of all. But she was Maria Theresa. 403 so accustomed to play the first part that now she feared the birth of a brother. She stood sponsor for the little Margaret, and the Modense envoy, who saw her at the christening, describes her as still very small, but of good proportions and noble lineaments. “ I do not think,” he wrote, “ that Christendom at present possesses a more gracious and beautiful princess.” On the way to the chapel, in removing her glove a costly ring having slipped from her finger : “ Keep it,” said she to a poor woman, who was handing it back ; “ God has sent it you.” Her union with the young Louis XIV. was suggested by Mazarin, who wished to secure the Spanish succession for the Bourbon dynasty. In the very year of Prince Balthasar’s death he had already disclosed this plan to the representative of France at Munster; but at that time it was regarded by diplomatists merely as a manoeuvre to thwart the Viennese projects ; for how could any Spanish State Council seriously entertain such an alliance so long as there was no male heir ? But long before the proposal had taken a serious turn, the infanta herself had practically decided in favour of her French cousin in Paris. When the imperial ambassador made an offer in 1653 on behalf of the King of the Romans, and portraits of the infanta were sent to Flanders and Germany, the Venetian envoy in Madrid, Giacomo Quirini, also received from his colleague Sagredo in Paris, a commission for a similar portrait, which Brienne wanted for the infanta’s aunt, Queen Ann. “ I have persuaded Don Luis [Flaro] to let me have one. . . . The painting will be prepared by Velasco, the king’s painter, and sent to Paris on the customary payment of fifty reals.” Quirini supposed that the picture, which was sent with the Flemish courier, was intended only for some apartment or gallery. He remarked nevertheless somewhat later that “ the original would no doubt willingly set out for France instead of her portrait.” The “original” in fact sought a pretext to ramble over the palace in order to get a look at a portrait of the young Louis, “ who with chivalrous bearing and in military uniform conquers without fighting ; and I suspect he has already conquered the heart of this most beautiful princess” ( Ouirini , October 16, 1655). After the betrothal these visits became more frequent, and once curtseying before the portrait : “ This,” said the princess to her ladies, “is a greeting for my bridegroom.” In March 1654 Quirini received from Sagredo another commission to procure from the king fifteen portraits of members Of the Habsburg family. The required measurements accompanied the order, which was followed in October by a request for four others. At the death of the 404 Velazquez. Empress Mary, Philip had exclaimed: “She was my only sister.” Now, however, he said : “ l am greatly pleased with what you tell me of my sister [Ann] ; I am glad she still takes interest in our concerns ; so you may write to France that I have given orders to have the portraits taken in hand at once.” What has become of all these paintings ? Doubtless portraits of Maria Theresa are very numerous ; but nearly all belong to her French period. Even in Madrid not one remains of her youthful years, although the inventories of the last century still mentioned several, such as an “ Origi- nal by Velazquez” in Buen Retiro (1700). All appear to have gone abroad. The Prado Museum, however, possesses the portrait of a princess, which is described as that of Maria Theresa (No. 1084). It represents a child about twelve years old in the fashion prevalent about 1660, and in Velazquez’ last manner ; but the subject is her stepsister Margaret, as will be seen further on. On the other hand the Morny collection possessed a genuine Maria Theresa of the Spanish period, which afterwards passed to Mrs. Lyne- Stephens. It was exhibited in the Palais Bourbon in 1874 (size 1 -49 x ro2 metre). In this work, which is altogether in the style of the fifth decade, a red-brown curtain is drawn across the empty dark-grey space, without indication of the limits between floor and walls, and the same curtain gives the ground for the infanta, who is dressed in black silk. She stands by a high chair in profile, with gold-fringed cushion, on which a very aristocratic little Prince Charles makes himself at home with the com- posure peculiar to the breed. The princess, who holds his long shaggy ear between two fingers, wears a gown trimmed on bodice and lower hem with silver-embroidered bands of chessboard pattern ; wide lace collar falling over the neck and shoulders ; cross-shaped red breast-knot and the usual string of huge pearls. The impressive and intelligent features make her look older than might be supposed from her short stature. The resemblance to her mother, Isabella of Bourbon, is unmistakable, even to the full lower part of the cheek. The hair also is dressed in the same way, while the firm round chin, the small but vigorously modelled hand and the glance imply character. Although later, thanks to the incomparably more agreeable French costume and style of hair, Maria Theresa looks very different, this youthful face may nevertheless still be recognized in her portraits by Mignard. This picture agrees also with the descriptions by Madame de Motte- ville and her brother during the meeting in Madrid (1659) and at the Maria Theresa. 405 foot of the Pyrenees ("1660). “ Her forehead was large, the silvery light hair falling loose ; the not very large blue eyes charmed through their brilliance and softness ; the cheek was rather thick below ; the complexion a lustrous white ; the mouth beautiful and red.” Judging from the Moray picture, we should scarcely call her beautiful ; but Madame de Motteville thought her much prettier than all the portraits that had been sent to France. Mazarin at last saw his long-cherished project realized in the year 1659 after Mariana of Austria had presented Spain with two princes. The solemn betrothal was entrusted to Marshal Grammont, whose brilliant entrance into Madrid on October 16 accorded to a high degree with the taste of the Spanish public. Philip received him in the mirrored apart- ment standing before a throne “of priceless value.” The French nobleman was struck by Titian’s superb equestrian portrait of Charles V. which hung above the throne, “ so natural,” wrote his son, “ that man and horse seemed alive.” Our princess also produced a favourable impression on the ladies, and when later the young king first saw her incognito in the apartment on Pheasant (Conference) Island in the Bidasoa river, although appalled at her costume, he still thought “ that she nevertheless possessed much beauty, and that he would find it easy to love her.” Philip was on his part enraptured with his “ handsome son-in-law.” Maria Theresa, the devoted wife of Louis XIV. “had no will but his, no wish but to please him ; ” yet she failed to fix his affections amid the vivacious and witty ladies of the gay French Court. Her mind was too contracted, too inactive ; her education was not raised above the level of ordinary Spanish women. Her monastic devotion, her simple child- like sensitiveness excited ridicule in some, pity in others, who recognized her gentle, pure nature. From the first Louis found her somewhat weari- some, although when she was gone he declared that her death was the first pain she had ever caused him. The Princess Margaret. The first fruit of Philip’s second nuptials was his darling little daughter, Margaret, born July 12, 1651. In those days of steady decline and humiliating disasters she appeared like a last sunny ray in the overcast evening of a life now suffering from the sins of its youth. The child possessed rare charms, and even the proud and cynical Grammont, who drew a grotesque picture of the Court society at that time (1659), in a 406 V ELAZQUEZ. letter to Queen Ann calls her “ a little angel,” and in another to Louis XIV. declares she is “ as sprightly and pretty as possible.” Even now in the presence of her portrait we feel the triumphant power of ever rejuvenescent life, still dawning fresh and full of bright hopes like the morning sun. So long as the sap wells up to a last lingering branch, so long will the withering stem blossom again with the balmiest bloom of spring. And thanks to the witchery of Art this lovety blossom still survives, as dewy, fresh and life-breathing as two hundred and thirty years ago. We are able to follow her during a budding growth of six years, as portrayed in at least seven still extant original pictures ; and we marvel how this Spanish artist, now in his fifties, and otherwise sensible only to the charms of the dark-eyed children of the South, could find the blends for this fair-complexioned flower transplanted from a northern clime — blends that no successor has yet been able to rival. He triumphs even over the grotesque fashion of the day ; she affects us here like a lovely vision, expanding her wings and soaring aloft to hover about the chariot of young love. Of all her portraits two only remained in the paternal home in Madrid, and one of these in the centre of the large family group. But as she was destined from the cradle for an Austrian cousin, like- nesses were sent from time to time to Vienna, and of these the imperial gallery preserves three or four, amongst which are the first and the last. The earliest (No. 615), taken at the age of three or four years, is entered under the name of Maria Theresa ; but the features are as unlike those of her stepsister thirteen years her senior, as they are like those of her authentic portraits. The style also is that of the sixth decade, and not of the year 1641 or thereabouts. It is the picture of an elegant child of pale delicate complexion, with somewhat languid, and still expressionless eyes and oval face ; tone cool and silvery. Of all the portraits this is perhaps the brightest, the most sparkling and highly coloured. The sparingly introduced black of the lace and dark jewels seems intended only to render more dazzling the THE PRINCESS MARGARET. Princess Margaret. 407 figure, which consists entirely of lustrous, light-reflecting materials — silks and the shimmering limpid white skin of childhood ; silvery, fair hair soft as silk ; glittering jewels and flashing blue iris. All this appeals to the eye with the truth of Nature itself. The figure, in bell-shaped, silver-embroidered rose frock, stands against a ground of surcharged warm colours : dark-green curtain, blue-green table- cloth, dark-red Turkish carpet with black floral pattern. It is painted with the freest brush, some white being afterwards added to the little hands, and dark-red about the head. How shall we describe this picture ? Perhaps the best definition might be the nosegay on the neighbouring table, with its pale red roses, chrysanthemums and lilies. It is a flower-bed in the morning dew and morning sun. How comes it that this painted bouquet, like the word “ rose ” in Saadi’s poems, brings home to us the charms of living flowers better than many an exquisite work by a De Heem or a Huysum ? This is the secret of pictorial treatment. The maiden’s own being comes nearest to that of a flower ; her only psychic existence is to stand there and bloom a little while. Still there is a certain self-possession, a refined dignity in this attitude — budding promise of the imperial dame. 1 Then follows the painting in the Louvre, probably a gift for Queen Ann, having already been in the old French Gallery; above stands the name in gold letters, LINFANTE MARGVERITE. Here the face has grown more elegant, but the eyes with their large blue orbs are still fixed and “ fancy free.” This picture is applied to the canvas with such thin colour and such a light hovering brush, that it is not only the despair of dilettanti, as Prosper Merimee said of himself, but also “a bone of contention to the copyists” ( Stirling-Maxwell ). But those familiar with this series of works will notice the greenish-yellow tone, which modifies the colours, and which deviates from the cool silver tone of the genuine portraits of children by Velazquez. It is a feature peculiar to Mazo, whose participation in the execution I also consider probable for other reasons. Now come several figures of the little princess in or about her sixth year, when she was most beautiful, for the fates awarded her only the transient beauty of girlhood. In the Vienna picture (No. 619) recently brought from the palace at Prague, in which she wears the same costume as in the 1 Described in C. von Lutzow’s Belvedere Gallery, and etched by W. Unger ; a copy in the Munich Pinakothek (No. 1 3 1 1), incorrectly called Maria Anna, daughter of Philip IV. A good replica formerly in the Alba Palace was withdrawn from the Paris sale of 18 77 (upset price forty-eight thousand francs) ; etched for the catalogue ; here the hair falls over the shoulders, and the fingers are more distinct, but the bunch of flowers is missing. 40S Velazquez. Meninas, the little face is more refined. Her guardian angel has in the meantime breathed grace into the little figure, intelligence into the sparkling young eye. This work bears altogether the stamp of our master’s hand. From the first, all radiant with colour, it differs by the simplicity of the tints which are relieved by a dark ground, and conjure up form and life with very few broad full touches of the brush. The ribbons and the curtain, the latter following the outlines of the figure, have the merest suggestion of rose, while the locks, with their silken sheen and fair ashy tone, are so fine and loose that we fancy they must be blown about by every puff of air. Similar to this is the specimen in Hertford House, originally from the Higginson collection, which although much more vigorously modelled betrays a less sure touch. Here will be noticed the delicate contrast between the golden tone of the face and the silvery tone of the figure, the soft subdued grey shadows and the lustre of the flesh tints. The Frankfort work, acquired for ten thousand seven hundred francs, from the Urquais and Pereira collection, is a hasty, thinly painted repetition, executed as with soft pastels of silver and gold powder. It is, however, somewhat damaged. Noteworthy is the third Vienna portrait (No. 620), in which has recently been rediscovered the long lost work, which is described by Palomino ( Museo , iii., 349), and which was sent to the emperor in 1659. It would thus have been painted the year before Velazquez’ death, and would represent Margaret in her eighth year. Here the square red surface of the pouch on the wall is made to serve as the ground for the blonde little head, whose features would seem to betray the first symptoms of a change for the worst. On the left is a small dressing-table with a heavy festooned cloth hanging down to the ground ; on this table stands an ebony timepiece supported by gilt-bronze lions and flanked by black and red balustrades. In the centre a round picture has been let in representing the chariot of Phoebus, together with a clock-dial. The hands rest on the distended frock, the left holding a huge muff. The ribbons in the hair, the costume and the breast-knot are all painted a dark olive-green. Although the authorship of this portrait is the best vouched for, it is impossible after repeated study to regard it as other than a work by Mazo under Velazquez’ guidance. A comparison with the preceding (No. 619) leaves no doubt on this point. The dark dead colour, the careless drawing, the awkward composition of the features — eyes, for instance, out of line — the lifeless eye, the effacement of the characteristic form of nose and mouth, the chalky white on the face, the unfinished modelling, the lustreless hair, Princess Margaret. 409 the unsatisfactory foreshortening of the left arm, all betray the pupil, who however, despite defective drawing, has skilfully seized his father-in-law’s masterly touch. Mingled feelings of amazement and admiration are generally excited by the puzzling figure (No. 1084) in the Isabella II. room, whose portentous costume may well be awarded the first prize for tastelessness even amongst the ladies of that period. But whoever has an eye for colour will not be thereby disturbed in his enjoyment of the astounding reality of this silver- embroidered, white silk gown, shimmering in a full light with its sparkling diamond and gold ornaments, and its bows and ribbons fiery red above, delicate rose below, the whole painted on the ground of a crimson brocade curtain suspended like a frowning rocky cliff. In Madrid the figure is called Maria Theresa, a title however which on several grounds must be rejected. What argument can be advanced in support of this name? In the palace inventory of 1772 a painting corre- sponding in size is so named ; but at the time of Philip V. the Infanta of the Meninas also bore the name of Maria Theresa. Yet whoever has inspected this princess’ portraits by Mignard (there are several in the Prado) will not believe such a change of features possible. Nor is there the least resemblance with her mother Isabella, for it is a genuine Habsburg face. The head is remarkable for the large, very open round eyes, whereas those of Maria Theresa were rather almond-shaped with drooping lids ; the former has a quick glance, the latter a soft and phlegmatic look ; one inherits her father’s ugly mouth, the other has well-formed lips. Both costume and manner of painting are those of the fifties ; yet according to the Madrid catalogue the face is that of a child ten years (?) old; hence she must have been painted about 1648, before Velazquez’ second Italian journey. Accordingly the same catalogue explains that the head was taken at a previous sitting, and that shortly before the negotiations for the French marriage, body, costume, head-dress, hands, were all added to this girlish head. Will anybody believe this ? At a time when she was expanding into the ripeness of maidenly beauty, and about to become the bride of the King of France, we are to suppose that a head taken in her childhood was dressed up in this gorgeous fashion. There was sufficient time to repaint such an elaborate costume with all its rich details, hair-dress and surround- ings, but no time to recast the face ! And so the head of a ten-years-old girl is mounted on the figure of a lady past her teens ! But we are told the face is painted in an earlier style, differing in a marked degree from that of the rest of the pictured In another style doubtless, but not in an earlier , and least of all in the manner of Velazquez. 410 Velazquez. The face is painted in a grey tone, smooth and hard and without reflected lights. It would be impossible to find a similar head painted by our master during the fifth decade. Moreover, not a trace of any earlier figure can be detected under the present. Lastly, a picture has recently been discovered in Vienna, which fully agrees with this but for the shortenings above and at the sides, and in which the relation of the face to the rest of the figure recurs exactly. Here also E. von Engerth was struck by the different treatment of the head, which is painted more diligently, but also more heavily, in a stone gre}' tone. Were there two large framed canvases in Madrid with only a head in the middle ? — and was the rest of the picture completed in both cases after an interval of ten years ? The head, however, accords quite well with the known portraits of the Princess Margaret, although the features are certainly somewhat altered ; the forms of her mother have become more accentuated, she is growing out of the lovely beauty of her girlhood. This process of premature plainness we see completed in her portrait by Mazo (Prado, No. 790). The side parting of the hair with the cross locks falling vertically over the brow she still retained even as empress. In the Vienna replica she wears as a breast ornament the Austrian double-headed eagle cn a fiery red ribbon. But even supposing that portraits of Maria Theresa were prepared for her marriage with the Emperor Leopold some time before the event, the imperial arms would scarcely have been introduced as the most prominent ornament before the formal betrothal. Besides the negotiations with the French Court had long been in progress, and the Bourbon lilies had a decided attraction for the princess. Margaret’s betrothal with the emperor took place in 1664, when she was thirteen years old, and the Viennese catalogue incidentally estimates the age in our portrait at twelve years. But Velazquez was no longer alive in 1664; hence we should have to assume either that it was painted by a pupil on the model of similar pictures of the princess, or what is more probable, the face of some work by his hand was retouched, in order to allow for the changes brought about by the intervening three or four years — in fact to “ bring it up to date.” In other respects the pleased air of the damsel with her pretty little nosegay suits the happy bride well enough. The Infant Don Philip Prosper. The above-mentioned portrait of Princess Margaret, painted for the emperor, was accompanied by that of her little brother, the two-years-old Philip Prosper. This is the prince on the occasion of whose birth Don Philip Prosper. 43 1 (November 28, 1657) Calderon wrote the Laurel of Apollo, in which occurred the refrain : — Hoy con prospero arrebol para todos nace el sol. 1 It may perhaps be presumed that this present of two charming children’s portraits lovingly painted in Madrid was not without some deeper purpose. Possibly they may have been intended as a salve for the wounded susceptibilities of the Vienna Court, taking umbrage at Don Luis de Haro’s Bourbon alliance. One served as an obvious guarantee against the foreign succession, while the other was suggestive of a happy Austrian marriage in the near future in the person of a child rapidly expanding into the bride. In this Prince Prosper, after an interval of eleven years since the death of Don Balthasar, nation and dynasty once more beheld an heir to the Crown. Grammont, who saw him in October 1660, calls him “beautiful;” and he may have contrasted somewhat favourably with his younger brother Ferdinand Thomas (born December 21, 1658), who looked so feeble that “ he will probably soon belong to the other world.” Grammont’s foreboding was verified by his death a few days afterwards (October 23, 1660). But Prosper himself was not much more promising, being subject to epilepsy, and by Quirini described as “of delicate complexion, lethargic, colourless after the Austrian manner, with open mouth, blue eyes and large head, but little strength in his knees, not to say a weakling.” He would let nobody carry him except the Franciscan Antonio de Castilla, which, as he was seventy-four years old, was not without danger. “ But their Majesties, who honour the holy habit with unequalled zeal and veneration, put up with this inconvenience with remarkable forbearance ” ( Quirini ). The portrait remained for nearly a century in the imperial castle of Gratz, whence it was removed in 1765 to Vienna. In the Belvedere it was formerly called Maria Theresa, and Stirling-Maxwell was the first to recognize its conformity with Palomino’s description (p. 349). The hat with its white plume on the tabaret cushion, the child’s red chair with the little dog (said to have been one of Velazquez’ great pets), the partition opening between door and window, all correspond. This pale face, so livid about eyes and mouth, breathes none of that childlike brightness that gives promise of length of days. But why is this pretty silver-embroidered light-rose frock reaching to the ground, concealed 1 “ To-day with prosperous dawn for all a sun is born.” 412 Velazquez. by a snow-white pinafore or apron, with all kinds of baubles, whistle, bell and rattle suspended from the girdle ? The little hands look like the drooping calyces of lilies, while the figure is bathed in a flood of surcharged red of several tones from the heavy curtain, the carpet, etc. As if strength and fire could stream through the medium of colour into the veins of this pale, fragile being. This feeble, flickering flame was quenched on Novem- ber I, 1 66 1. 1 Last Portraits of Philip IV. His second marriage gave occasion to new portraits of the ageing monarch in full figure with Queen Mariana as a pendant. Two such couples increase the number of productions by Velazquez in the Prado. The earlier of these, in which he is represented kneeling, is a companion to the already described picture of the queen, and comes from the Escorial, where there was formerly a small preparatory sketch. Amongst the last works of the master is the aged head of Philip that so often turns up in collections. Of these the best specimens are those of the Prado (No. 1080, not quite intact), of the London National Gallery, and of Vienna (No. 612, formerly in the Ambras Palace, also apparently an original). The Prado head closely resembles that of the figure in full armour (No. 1077), which, however, through its vigorous modelling produces a more martial effect. According to Villafranca’s dated engraving in De los Santos’ Description of the Escorial , this work may be referred to about the year 1657. Consequently this impressive head represents Philip at the time of the treaty of peace with France, before his humiliating discomfiture in the attempt to recover Portugal. In this last and darkest period of his ad- ministration misfortune seemed to bring out the human side of his nature, the original goodness and inoffensiveness of his character. After the death of his only son he had proposed to himself to become the father of his people ; then the hope of another heir made him a faithful husband, and at that time Madame de Motteville thought he had “a physiognomy full of goodness.” At the meeting with his sister Ann after a separation of thirty years the thought of all the intervening years made him exclaim : Es el diahlo que lo ha hecho (“ It was all the devil’s doing ”). He wept bitter tears at the leave-taking with Maria Theresa and Louis XIV., “when he saw both children hanging upon his neck.” 1 A contemporary copper-plate of Prince Prosper is extant, in which the hydro- cephalous affection is much more apparent. Last Portraits of Philip. 4 13 The face has become firmer and fuller, but the features are at the same time strongly marked, no doubt betraying earnestness and resignation, but not yet decay and illness. The soft fair locks still fall unwhitened down to the golilla. This fashion of wearing the hair long was introduced in the fifth decade, and became still more exaggerated under Charles II. The grand mustachio completes the picture of an aged captain in whose face are written the lines of a long career, which however still holds firm, determined “ to die in harness.” The massive chin now for the first time comes fully into play ; in fact it may be said that Philip never at any time looked to so much advantage; we accordingly find that this broadly and solidly painted picture has everywhere been much studied and copied. His gravity seems even more natural than in early life, although the clear white flesh tint imparts a certain softness to the picture. But however much the small hard head as painted by Velazquez some thirty years before may have altered, certain fundamental traits — glance, carriage, even the locks on the brow — have remained unchanged throughout all the vicissitudes of years and fortune. The head has been copied by Carreno (Academy of San Fernando) ; the exemplars in the Louvre, in the Hermitage, in Bath House, in Lord Clarendon's collection are also copies. That in the Turin Gallery is more decayed, while the head of the equestrian portrait in the Uffizi is not much earlier. After these days Philip’s strength began to fail. A cold caught in 1659 at Aranjuez was followed by a stroke of paralysis; and the military disasters on the Portuguese frontier were too much even for his stoicism. The features became deeply furrowed, the glance vacant, the expression wopn and bitter. His appearance during these last years subsequent to Velazquez’ death is preserved in the portrait by Mazo (Prado, No. 1117, and H. Huth’s collection) ; the portrait of a man broken down. This head was engraved by the same Villafranca in Monforte’s Description of the Obsequies, in which the previous engraving was repeated. Thus ended this ruler, in the main noble, gentle and gifted, but who lacked will, the most essential quality for his station in life. “ Now after the final termination of terrible wars and the conclusion of peace, he looked forward to a long evening of life in the enjoyment of quiet ; but harassed by pains in the side, oppressed by ailments, weary of business, grieving at the lamentable state of the monarchy, he received the last blow with complete resignation.” 414 Velazquez. The Family Portrait. Las Mcninas : “ The Maids oj Honour. (3-18 x 276 m.) This great picture, at all times regarded as the master’s most renowned work, and most clearly impressed with the stamp of his genius, is strictly speaking a portrait of Princess Margaret as the central figure in one of the daily recurring scenes of her palace life. The figure agrees perfectly with the Vienna work (No. 619), only it is painted with more fiery rapidity, and the blonde complexion looks to better advantage in an environment treated with much dark blue. Her stepbrother Don Balthasar had been dealt with in a somewhat similar way in the Riding School. But the daily life of a young princess offered no such favourable scenes to the artist as those suggested by the more varied occupations of a prince fond of horsemanship and field sports. Her existence was passed in the secluded apartments of the Caarto de la Reina, surrounded by all the restrictions of a relentless Court etiquette. Madame de Motteville’s Memoirs gives us an account of a visit at the threshold of the Infanta Maria Theresa's room : “She is waited on with great respect, few have access to her, and it was a special favour that we were allowed to linger at the door of her chamber. When she is thirsty a menin (maid) brings a glass to a lady, who kneels as does also the menin ; and on the other side is also a kneeling attendant, who hands her the napkin ; opposite stands a Maid of Honour.” The passage reads almost like a description of our painting. Here the central figure is the little idol, at that time in her fifth year, constantly surrounded by ministering elfs, by trusty Ariels and submissive sprights ; for she is depicted as the chief orb of a sphere, where light and shade, beauty and deformity harmoniously combine to do her service. In Spain the picture bears the name of Las Mcninas , not without reason. The noble damsels were at any rate for the Spaniards the most attractive of all the figures, but they were the dark-eyed daughters of their race, lovely young blossoms of the old Castilian stock. For this office in the royal family beauties were specially selected, and Madame d’Aulnoy who saw them in the year 1680, calls them “fairer than Love is painted.” In their curtseying and bending of the knee there lurks an innate grace that triumphs even over the unsightly costume of that period. So famous was the painting that the names of all the figures were The Meninas. 4i5 curtseying slightly, is Doha Isabel de Velasco, daughter of Don Bernar- dino Lopez de Ayala y Velasco, Count of Fuensalida. She grew up to a womanhood of rare beauty, but died three years later. These maids of honour attended on the queen and on the princesses from their infancy to the time when they assumed the chapin, or slippers worn by the young ladies. The meninas themselves wore low shoes and a kind of high-heeled sandals, which like galoches, were worn duly recorded. The lady kneeling in profile is Doha Maria Agostina, daughter of Don Diego Sarmiento ; she holds a gold salver from which she hands the princess the water in a red cup made of bucaro, a fine scented clay brought from the East Indies. The other facing her and THE MAIDS OF HONOUR. 416 Velazquez. over the others ; both in the palace and outside they went without hat or cloak. On the right, and more to the front of Dona Isabel, are two figures of quite a different type, who form in the foreground a group apart, jointly with the sculpturesque-looking mastiff crouched half asleep at the edge of the frame ; for these playthings are after all themselves mere domestic animals in human form. With the Cerberus at the threshold are naturally associated the two grotesque figures of Mari Barbola and Nicolasico Pertusato, who serve to complete our master’s gallery of Court dwarfs, and who have suggested Wilkie’s description of the work as the “ Picture of the Children in Grotesque Dresses.” Pertusato has planted his foot on the dog, as if to remind him that it is unseemly to slumber in the presence of royalty, while the other, round as a tub, gives the spectator a full view of her broad, depressed, almost brutal countenance. Farther back, in the gloom produced' by the closed shutters, two Court officials are conversing with bated breath — the Senora de honor Dona Marcela de Ulloa in the convent habit, and a guardadamas (“ ladies’ guard ”), whose duty it was to ride with the coaches of the Court ladies and conduct the audiences. Then quite in the rear at the open door stands Don Joseph Nieto, the queen’s quarter-master, drawing the curtain aside. Such a grouping as this can have resulted only by chance. Such everyday scenes, even when in themselves suited for pictorial treatment, pass unnoticed because of their constant occurrence, unless indeed the artist be a stranger. Chance alone, which Leonardo da Vinci tells us is so often a happy discoverer, could have here detected the materials of a pictorial composition. It happened that on one occasion, when the royal couple were giving a sitting to their Court painter in his studio, Princess Margaret was sent for to relieve their Majesties’ weariness. The light, which, after the other shutters had been closed, had been let in from the window on the right for the sitters, now also streamed in upon their little visitor. At the same time Velazquez requested Nieto to open the door in the rear, in order to see whether a front light also might be available. Thus the king sat there, relieved from councils and affairs of State, and yielding to his paternal feelings in the midst of the family circle. Then it occurred to him, being himself half an artist, that something like a pictorial scene had developed before his eyes. He muttered : " That is a picture ; ” the next moment the desire arose to see this perpetuated, and The Meninas. 417 without more ado the painter was at work on the sketch of his recuerdo (memento). In the case of recnerdos details should be faithfully recorded, just as they had been casually brought together. Hence the peculiar character of the composition, which as an invention would be inexplicable. It is, so to say, a tableau vivant, and the figures might certainly have been more naturally and effectively grouped in a semi-circle about the canvas on the easel. But they were not in fact at the moment mingled in a single group ; the royal couple, although invisible to the observer, were in the immediate vicinity. Thus the princess while taking the bucaro glances towards her mother ; Dona Isabel looks with a curtsey in the same direction ; Mari Barbola hangs with the eyes of a trusty watch-dog on those of her mistress ; the guardadamas while listening to Dona Marcela’s whisperings keeps an eye on the king ; lastly Nieto turns at the door with an inquiring look. In a word we see the company as one sees the audience in the pit from the stage, and precisely from the standpoint of the king, who is reflected in the mirror on the wall by the side of the queen. He had seated himself opposite this mirror in order to be able to judge of his posture. It may, however, be incidentally remarked that nothing is known of any work in which he appears actually on the same canvas with Mariana. In this instantaneous picture the artist himself had also of course to be taken. He stands at his easel, but slightly concealed by the kneeling figure in front, his head dominating the whole group. In his right hand he holds the long brush, in his left the palette and painter’s stick. The hand, like those of this picture generally, is exquisitely painted, the motion of the fingers being distinctly indicated by' four strokes of the brush. _ Op his breast he wears the Red Cross of Santiago. According to the legend Philip, on the completion of the painting, had reserved a royal surprise for its creator. Remarking that it still lacked something, he seized the brush and added this Red Cross. The anecdote has been questioned, because the preliminary formalities connected with the con- ferring of the Order date from two years later. But although according to Palomino the Cross was added by order of the king after Velazquez’ death, it may still have possibly been associated with the work at the time. Certainly this was the first precedent for the figure of a painter, even though a palace marshal, to be introduced in a canvas depicting the intimate family circle of royalty. Hence it may have seemed proper for him also to be promoted to a higher degree of nobility for the occasion. 27 418 Velazquez. Such might seem to be the probable history of the Meninas. Here is consequently the apparent paradox that one of the most original creations of modern painting is more than any other the fac-simile of a casual incident. It is the picture of the production of a picture. The subjects of the latter are kept out of sight, for if introduced they would have to turn their backs on the observers ; nevertheless their presence is betrayed by the mirror. The observer sees what the royal couple see, not what the painter sees, for he would see his meninas in a mirror hanging over against him. And it is quite possible that he really made use of such a mirror. There is otherwise a superfluity of frames in the picture — frames of the mirror, of the door, of the easel, many (all these black) of oil paintings, perhaps those copies of works by Rubens, the Heraclitus and Democritus and the Saturn and Diana, which according to the inventories hung between the windows. The same inventories mention animal paintings and landscapes above the windows. Yet no picture is more calculated than this to make us forget that it is a picture. Oil est done le tableau ? asked Theophile Gautier. The passing incident would naturally have at first been fixed by a sketch. This sketch, which is still extant, is the only undoubted one known to us of any painting carried out by the master on a large scale. And even this perhaps owes its existence to the circumstance that it was the original intention to execute the work in more modest proportions. The sketch, which in Cean Bermudez’ time belonged to Don Caspar de Jovellanos, is undoubtedly the same that is now owned by Mr. Banks of Kingston Lacy (size 56 x 48 inches). Its accordance with the large canvas is almost complete. Under the pigments we see the delicate and distinct lines of the infanta’s oval face, of her eyes and loose hair, drawn with a pencil. The couple in the mirror is still missing, although the red curtain is already there. Regarding this sketch the most diverse views have been advanced. The thoughtless and jealous declared it to be a copy. Waagen ( Treasures , iv., 581) considered it incredible that such a spirited work (delicate silver tone, clear deep chiaroscuro') could be a copy, and even a greatly reduced copy. At the exhibition in Burlington House (1864) it was pronounced to be an original sketch. On that occasion the opinion was expressed ( Athenceum , i., 81 1) that Velazquez made this sketch for the purpose of securing the king’s approval, and thus obtain his sanction to execute it on a large scale, as something unique in portrait painting. In the sketch, where ground colours prevail, the light seems to fall The Meninas. 419 somewhat less abruptly ; the black figure of the artist, who already wears his decoration, stands out more conspicuously between the bright and coloured figures, while the ceiling with its greenish grey tone and the yellow floor is more distinct. That such a picture should be due to a momentary fancy was naturally owing to the circumstance that the material accidentally presented to the painter was specially calculated to stimulate his peculiar powers, reviving the memory of the motives in the works he most admired, such as Tintoretto’s Marriage of Cana with the sunlight falling sideways on the fair-haired heads, and his Washing of the Feet with its marvellous perspective display. Assuredly Leonardo da Vinci’s dogma that relief is “the soul of painting,” that “ the beauty and first wonder ” of this Art lies in the appearance of the figure raised and detached from the surface, has never been more convincingly understood, adhered to with more force of learning, more approvingly admired in all its accuracy by artists and non-professionals alike, than in this work. Waagen remarked that one here seems to observe Nature as in a camera obscura ; to Stirling-Maxwell it looked like “ an anticipation of Daguerre’s invention Mengs calls it “the proof that the perfect imitation of Nature is something that equally satisfies all classes of observers.” The nine figures, of which scarcely two occupy the same perspective depth, are each toned according to their respective positions, and modelled in the continually shifting accidents of the light effects. The light falls fullest on the princess, radiating back from the white satin and golden blonde complexion. Other figures are distributed between light and shade ; others again are completely plunged in the gloom, and as at first a light figure stands on a dark ground, at last a dark figure, little more than a silhouette , stand§ against the clear sunlight. The strongly foreshortened wall with the three rows of pictures one above the other helps to measure the space. The obtrusive monotonous reverse of the large easel-piece serves to conveniently disturb the sense of an apparently studied arrangement of the composition, and thus aids the illusion. Then the dim empty space above the groups, occupying far more than half of the canvas, lends animation to the groups themselves by the force of contrast. Here also, where he had a free hand, we see how at last Velazquez studied the just relation between the height of the figures and that of the whole. To prevent the surface of the background from clpsing in abruptly and confining the eye the dark wall opposite was broken through in two different ways. In the treatment of this motive Velazquez, as well as his pupil Murillo, came in contact with Peter de Hooghe, the greatest contemporary painter of sunlight. The open door lets the daylight in and reveals the 420 Velazquez. sunshine outside. Then the mirror brings in a measure on to the scene the perspective depth towards the rear as well as the forward depth. The mirror plays this part also in De Hooghe’s works, as in the Pianist in the Van der Hoop Museum. Nor should the blank space be overlooked in the mirror itself in left corner below. Light and shade mutually aid each other. A sunlight such as that streaming in through the door has a dazzling effect ; this rectangular white patch affects us so overpoweringly that we take the vagueness of the objects on the wall (for instance, those undistinguishable oil-paintings, copies of Rubens’ Mythologies, amongst others apparently the Apollo and Marsyas) as the effect of the glare, and accordingly estimate the intensity of that light as much stronger than any colours could produce. Here not only are the objects painted, but the artist has also depicted the very strain of the eye to discern them through the gloom. In a good light the groups appear veiled as if with a delicate luminous gossamer web. This is due to that dispersion of the radiations, which is caused by the proximity of a strong light over a dimly illumined space. All this dawns only gradually on the eye. Few pictures demand such a continuous study, the more so that at first the attention is too much absorbed in the wonderful figures themselves . 1 As is often the case with Rembrandt, we fancy at first that we see nothing but colourless gloom interspersed with a few luminous oases. But as we linger a mysterious life seems to stir on the surface ; the vagueness clears up, grows distinct ; the colours come out ; one figure after another emerges in relief ; nay, some seem even to turn, the features, the eyes appear to move. The golden frame becomes a setting for a magic mirror which annihilates the centuries, a telescope for distance in time, revealing the spectral movements of the inmates of the old palace over two hundred years ago. In this picture the ideal of the historian has become truth and reality. And with what expedients has all this been realized ? When the eye is brought close to the surface, we are amazed at their simplicity. The picture is broadly painted, as if with reckless haste, on a coarse canvas with long bristly brush, although of all his works it produces the softest and most 1 “ Las Meninas que tout le monde regarde et que personne ne voit, peinture qui a besoin d’etre analysee dans ses infiniment petits. On ne juge ce tableau que par le ridicule de ses personnages ; on n'etudie jamais la qualite de ses tons, de son harmonie generale, de fair ambiant qui y circule, la maniere dont les gris sont manies ; en un mot, la qualite de la peinture, l’audace, la verve et la grande science de l’execution. Au premier abord, les mains paraissent parfaites ; mais pour obtenir un pareil resultat a si peu de frais, il faut etre un peintre de premier ordre.” — P. L. Imbert, L Espagne (Paris : 1875), p. 213. The Meninas. 42 1 tranquil impression. In no other are the processes laid so completely bare. In the shadows we distinguish the brown parts of dead colouring rubbed in ; the grey surfaces in white blends applied over this ground ; the local colours and lights in one place dashed off with rich, angular, formless touches, in another softly blended. The figures are formed with such broad, grey touches, and then full bodily substance and the pulse of life are imparted to their still dim existence, often with a few sharp strokes. The local colouring is kept in reserve, the artist operating chiefly by means of light and shade ; a deadened greenish blue, dark green, or white is lightly applied above, while here and there small red patches come to the front. The secret lies in that thin super- position of dark on light, light on dark, unblended, hovering one above the other, the outlines receiving an appearance of quivering motion by broad brown strokes of the brush as if stippled. But the essential point are the nuances improvised on the spur of the moment by the fire of the hand struggling with the impressions of the eye. Peculiar to Velazquez’ genius was this delicate sensitiveness to the differences of the chiaroscuro , and the processes by which Nature models. He saw what no one had hitherto seen. But does not the true artist always find the means to effect his purpose, this being the special privilege of genius ? An artist possessing the receipts for every trick of Titian’s or Rembrandt’s brush would still make nothing of them without their eye. The earliest known remark on this painting is that of the Italian Luca Giordano, who is said to have observed to Charles II. : “ Sire, this is the theology of painting!” What are we to understand by this enigmatical expression ? It is scarcely to be supposed that he thereby meant to pro- noujice it “the first in the world, as theology is the foremost of the sciences,” as a Spanish commentator interpreted the saying. To a Frenchman it occurred that the point of comparison lay in its “subtlety.” For, “what in fact is more subtle than theology and the impalpable air, although itself touching and enveloping all things” (Thore, Salons, i., 225). One might fancy he wished to single out the work as a standard for the treatment of relief and chiaroscuro , just as Polycletus’ Lance-bearer was accepted as the “Canon” of proportions. But in that case, why did not Giordano use the word philosophy rather than theology , as did Lawrence in his letter to Wilkie of November 27, 1827 : “In all the objects and subjects of his pencil it is the true philosophy of Art — -the selection of essentials — of all which, first and last, strikes the eye and senses of the spectator.” Theo- logy is the science of revealed truth in contradistinction to that acquired by the natural powers of the understanding. Hence the point of comparison 422 V ELAZQUEZ. would seem to lie in the directness, the inspired character of the work, such as Mengs remarks upon in another of Velazquez’ paintings, in the execution of which the will alone, and not the hand, seemed to have had any part. Jn the inventory of 1686, where it is first mentioned, the Meninas is valued at ten thousand doubloons, and under the Bourbons (1747) the price rose to twenty-five thousand doubloons. It was etched by Goya, but the plate was destroyed, having been injured in the process of rebiting. Only five impressions are known, one of which is in the British Museum, acquired for £21. The original was said to have been injured by the fire that destroyed the Alcazar (1734), and afterwards repaired by Juan de Miranda. The general tone may perhaps thereby have become somewhat darker. Velazquez’ Family. Fortunately we also possess a painting of the master’s family, which at the same time gives us a view of his studio in the palace. Down to recent years it passed for one of Velazquez’ masterpieces ; Stirling- Maxwell called it his most important work out of Spain, while Viardot declared it to be nearly as comprehensive and excellent as the Meninas itself. Nor were these views objected to even by those familiar with his genuine works in Madrid. Clement de Ris, however, could not remember having seen “ one so feeble as this by a painter, who almost more than any other remains otherwise so true to himself.” The history of the origin and wanderings of this remarkable work is shrouded in darkness, nor has any trace of it hitherto been discovered in Spanish documents. It makes its appearance for the first time in the year 1800 amongst a collection cf otherwise worthless paintings, which had been forwarded from Italy to Rosa, curator of the imperial and royal gallery. At that time it already bore the name of Velazquez’ Family, apparently from some long-standing tradition. In the foreground stand nine persons all in a row, falling off in the direction from left to right ; amongst them are five children disposed according to age and size just like organ-pipes ; consequently the line of their heads describes a diagonal. First come, still in the shade of a green portiere, two young persons as visitors, one with a broad hat in his hand, with a young lady in a light-grey gown cut quite straight and low, and round hat with red plume. By her side stands a boy some ten years of age, who has come with her, and wears a black gala dress with the golil/a ; his noble Velazquez’ Family. 423 features, which recall those of Velazquez, are overcast with a pensive earnestness. Then follow four boys grouped round a woman, who is seated. The lady who has just entered places her hand with a friendly greeting on the head of the first lad, who wears high light-coloured leather boots, grey vest and light-red embroidered jacket, lace collar and cuffs. But he looks towards the tall youth who seems more to interest him, and whose stylish costume and attitude he is studying with bashful admiration. His hand rests in brotherly fashion on the shoulder of the younger boy in purple, whose hair is plaited in little tresses on the temples with blue ribbons. This “ good little boy,” with grandfather’s big crooked stick in his left hand, offers an orange with an air of heroic generosity to the young man just entering . 1 He stands leaning against the stout woman, his mother or governess, who is seated with her back to the visitors, apparently whispering something to the little girl whom she clasps round the shoulder and holds by the hand. To judge from the defiant mien this blue-eyed lassie needs to be reminded of her duty towards the guests. The last jaunty little fellow in red hose and yellow jacket and sword by his side, holds a little bird and is staring with his round owl-eyes into space, absent-minded but self-satisfied. The woman wears a red silver-embroidered gown, a brown wrap and black velvet jacket with clasps on the breast. This is altogether a richly coloured picture, where the large dark brown eyes of the Castilian children “ sparkle like jewels.” They have assembled in their Sunday clothes perhaps for some festive occasion, such as the father’s birthday. From the composed pride of that young cavalier to the wondering air of the smallest youngster the painter has with shrewd humour hit off the childlike disposition of each according to their respective ages. The diagonal line of this group leaves half of the background quite free for the studio and the large space in front of it. At the opposite wall of the space stands a table with dark velvet cover reaching down to the floor. On this table are the marble bust of a woman, drawings, a glass vase with flowers, and above, exactly in the central axis of the canvas, the half-length figure of the old king and a landscape in a black frame. On the right, occupying over a third of the width, the studio 'The finished study made for this head was, in 1879, first recognized by me in the portrait in Dulwich College (No. 222) which is there sometimes called Velazquez, sometimes Pareja (size I4f x iof inches ). 424 Velazquez. opens up, raised a few steps above the general level. The trees of the park are visible through the one high window, which has very large panes for the period. A nurse with still a sixth “olive branch" has slipped up, and baby encouraged by nurse and perhaps uttering a loud crow, is about to toddle with open arms towards the man in black, who with his back to the company has not yet been attracted by the buzz of conversation. The canvas stands on the ground before him, and the figure in the hooped gown is partly masked by his black silhouette. Who are these twelve persons ? Hitherto the painter has been taken for Velazquez, the children for his sons, the lady in the chair for his wife Juana, the lady standing for his daughter Francisca followed by her husband. But in the marriage certificate of 1634 Francisca is described as the only daughter, while nothing is known of any sons of his. Hence those cannot be his children, but perhaps grandchildren, for, according to Palomino, his son-in-law Mazo had a large family. Two of Mazo’s sons, Balthasar and Gaspar, are afterwards met with in good positions at Court. In the left corner above an escutcheon has been introduced — a raised arm in armour holding a mazo (mace, or mallet), in a shield on a red ground. The question arises, Is the painter at the easel the father or the grandfather? In the latter supposition Velazquez must have been an uncommonly lusty grandfather, for the alcove is furnished with no “ grand- father’s chair,” nothing but two bare folding-stools. Nor is he working in a comfortable smock, but in a smart black Court dress ; still less does he consider a slovenly attitude the most becoming for an artist’s own portrait. And how empty is his studio compared with what is now thought necessary ! On this assumption the son-in-law might be the second gentleman in front, who at a pinch might be identified with the portrait by Esteban March in the Prado (No. 779). I am unable to detect any resemblance between the stout woman and the profile of the Sibyl, or with the so-called Juana de Miranda, both of which have on insufficient grounds passed for portraits of Velazquez’ wife (see pp. 266, 267). After the death of his first wife (about 1658?) Mazo had contracted a second marriage, this time with Ana de la Vega. All these questions might be answered were anything known as to the date of the picture. The hand of a pupil in this painting was first recognized by Sir J. C. Portraits of Velazquez. 425 Robinson, who suggested Juan de Pareja. 1 In the year 1874 I fancied I detected the hand of Mazo, and this view has been independently taken also by Curtis. With all the impetuosity of its rough and ready touch, often applied as if by fits and starts, with all the truth of its delicate children’s complexion, silk and silver sheen, here we still miss Velazquez’ all- pervading clearness even in the dim lights, his sobriety of colouring, his sure draughtsmanship. Taking the lifesize bust of the king as a standard we see that the figures in the alcove standing a few steps farther back are drawn on far too small a scale. In the composition also the artist shows his inferiority to the master. He certainly had the Meninas in view, but was evidently anxious to avoid coincidences, which may explain many peculiarities. We have again a row of children facing the spectator ; the painter also stands before a large easel-piece, perhaps the figure of the same Queen Mariana ; lastly the portrait of Philip IV. on the opposite wall, as in the mirror of the Meninas. Portraits of Velazquez. The figure before the easel in the Meninas is the only absolutely certain portrait of the master by his own hand. This figure seems spare and of medium size, with somewhat oblong features, rather high steep forehead and well-marked bosses over the bushy black eyebrows, concave nose with prominent tip, wide lower jaw, full chin. This head belongs to a type which is not rare in Spain. The hair, lying close to the scalp and parted in the middle, falls in slightly wavy cone-shaped masses down to the- collar, as was the fashion of the time. All other extant portraits, except that in the Capitol in which I have recognized (pp. 163, 164) the picture of 1630 mentioned by Pacheco, also show him in advanced years, but with quite a different position of the head and cast of the eye. While resembling that of 1630 in the per- manent form of forehead, nose, chin, and mouth, they differ from it in the glance and the more strongly marked features. In the youthful portrait the countenance is open, almost dreamy and thoroughly artistic, in the later works more disguised. According to the former we might suppose him a man of impulse and first impressions, quick to love and hate, according to the others a reserved, silent observer.- Of these portraits the best known are the two in the Sala dei Pittori of the Uffizi, which have often been graphically reproduced. Judging 1 Memoranda on Fifty Pictures (London : 1868), p. 44. 426 Velazquez. from the badge of Santiago (1658) on one of these, it can have been taken only in his last years, perhaps even not till after his death. It is nearly three-quarters length, showing the graceful figure of the painter and cavalier (No. 217). The hair is here also parted in the centre; but instead of leaving the rectangular forehead free, is brushed far down and across it, whereby the oval of the head in three-quarters profile seems narrower. The serious, proud, almost pained, glance is turned back towards the spectator. Nothing is here to be seen of his profession, no painter’s gear, not even the painter's look. Perhaps he felt as Congreve did, who to the world wished to be known only as a gentleman, not as a playwright. This pale face, as well as the whole figure, is now varnished over with a soft, dark-yellow veil. In the right hand is to be seen the key of the palace marshal’s office ; the hands wear long leather gloves, and the style of the painting approaches that of the master. The exemplar in the Valencia Museum (No. 684) has been etched by the painter Fortuny for Davillier’s Memoria (1874). The portrait in Bridgewater House (No. 217), acquired from H. Farrar, is an inferior copy of the one in Munich (No. 366), which came from the Dusseldorf Gallery. Still worse seems to have been the replica in the Spanish Gallery in the Louvre. Less attractive is the second portrait in the Uffizi (No. 216), where the fulness of growing age is strongly accentuated, the expression cold and phlegmatic. The hair falls on the left side in an oblique wavy line, while on the right it is brushed straight over the forehead. The glaring red reflected lights, the black shadows, the wide falling collar raise serious doubts as to its authenticity This picture was engraved by Girolamo Rossi in 1748, by Colombini in 1769, and by others. How these portraits reached the Uffizi is unknown. The second, which was engraved in the Florentine portrait work, may possibly have come from the Roman Academy of St. Luke, to which the members left their likenesses. In 1685 there was a portrait of a Monsieur Velasco in Prince Ignazio d’Este's collection, in which the hands are merely sketched. It has been identified with the picture of a painter now in the Modena Gallery, which however shows not the least resemblance to Velazquez. Formerly the two fine portraits of unknown Spanish cavaliers in Apsley House and in Lansdowne House (the latter from the collection of the Prince of Peace), were also taken for portraits of the master painted by himself. Both are executed in his second manner, and the The Spinners. 4-7 latter, representing a young man, shows a certain resemblance to Velaz- quez, which however lies more in the glance than in the features, which lack his steep forehead and wide lower jaw. In Stirling-Maxwell’s minia- ture, from which was also taken the woodcut in Edwin Howe’s Life of Velazquez ( 1 88 1 ) the artist has, to say the least, given free scope to his fancy. Lastly, mention may be made of the work in Versailles (No. 2059), a copy by Matthieu of a picture by Le Brun and Van der Meulen, representing the interview between Philip IV. and Louis XIV. in the Island of Pheasants (1660). In this picture the French Court painter (Le Brun) is supposed to have introduced the figure of his Spanish col- league just behind his sovereign. But here we seek in vain for any head even remotely resembling that of Philip’s Court painter. The description — “ An old and red-looking man ; cadaverous portrait ” (Scott) — shows that the head of Don Luis de Haro has been taken for that of Velazquez. These angular haggard features were supposed to represent the aged painter, in whom the germs of death were already concealed. The Spinners: “Las Hilanderas.” (2-20 x 2-89 metres.) This scene in the Royal Tapestry Manufactory at Madrid is perhaps the last great work that’ our maser found time to execute. The subject was, to a certain extent, connected with his position as palace marshal. On religious feasts and public festivities, it was doubtless his duty to supply the chief Court upholsterer with the necessary hangings from the rich' assortment in the royal wardrobes, and when they needed repairing he would in the same way hand them over to this official. We read in Palomino (iii., 348) how the mirrored apartment was got ready by Velazquez and this tapicero mayor for the reception of the Duke of Grammont. On one occasion when he was showing a party of Court ladies to the door, and had stepped aside to await the result of their discussion on a piece of work exposed for inspection, he noticed certain pictorial motives in the groups moving before him, and thus arose the Hilanderas. At that time Madrid also had its tapestry looms, although documents relating to Spanish weaving have been discovered for Navarra and Bar- celona alone. In any case since the fifteenth century the Flemish factories had driven the native industry completely from the market. Philip II., however, who had an eye for all talents and industries in his kingdom 428 Velazquez. discovered in Salamanca one Pedro Gutierrez, a tapestry weaver, whom he forthwith took into his service (1572). The large sums which were sent abroad for such objects must have naturally awakened the desire to make Spain independent of the foreign market for these wares. The Duke of Pastrana had, “ in emulation of the Chinese and Flemings,” founded a workshop in Pastrana with the aid of foreign artizans, and of the products of this place exhibited at the Corpus Christi procession of 1623 Netherlanders themselves had declared that “ no brush in the world could excel them.” In the year 1625 that factory seems to have been removed to the capital, where Antonio Ceron, a successor of Gutierrez, had already in 1622 set up at his own risk an atelier with four looms in the Sta. Isabel quarter. These he worked by means of eight hands brought from Sala- manca, and also brought up eight apprentices to the trade. But his application for State aid was rejected, presumably because a grant had already been made to Franz Tons, a Fleming in Pastrana. The scene here depicted probably takes place in one of the chambers of this manufactory in Sta. Isabel. The establishment was doubtless popular in the capital as the beginning of a national effort to share in this branch of industry ; the possession of a series of tapestries was also at that time the ambition of all aristocratic and wealthy houses. This workshop has somewhat the appeal ance of a chapel opening on a small arched alcove, a sort of four-cornered apsis, which is raised two steps above the general level. On two walls of this recess, facing the entrance and the window, some tapestry has been hung, which three ladies have advanced to inspect. But the greater part of the canvas is occupied by the front chamber, where five women are engaged in the preparation of the yarn. The Spinners forms, strictly speaking, a double picture, each section constituting a distinct scene of itself — one a broad, half-darkened plebeian, the other a radiant, aristocratic scene, with heightened lights, like pit and stage. So true is this, that at the first glance the picture in the background might be taken for some theatrical performance, in which case the hangings would represent an episode in some mythological play, the ladies, some of the select audience, being accommodated with a place on the stage, as was customary in those days. Nor is the orchestral music lacking, for we notice a sort of contra-basso, leaning against a barocco armchair. In the disposition one seems to recognize free reminiscences of Venetian studies. Thus the intersecting lines of the contrasted figures in front The Spinners. 4 2 9 and rear with their strongly foreshortened heads ; the sunlight from the window falling on the female heads ; even the way the second little scene is introduced in a recess behind the chief scene, all these are motives familiar to the admirer of Tintoretto. But apart from this no analogous invention is known to me, although one soon sees that it sprang from the same brain that devised the Meninas. For here also we have a picture within a picture, round which the action THE SPINNERS. moves directly and indirectly. Only the picture in the Meninas, where all the characters one behind the other face towards the invisible royal couple, acquires somewhat the aspect of a tableau ; but here the painter seems to be occupied with the problem, how far it may be possible to carry the semblance of the casual, the seeming concealment of the appliances of the Art itself. Here none of the dramatis personae suspect that an artist is watching them from behind the scene. The groups could not look more accidental or unstudied in an instantaneous photograph. They 430 Velazquez. are also, as mostly in actual life, exclusively secondary persons without a central figure — -“a novel without a hero.” But the essential point lies in the management of the light. In fact light is the proper object of this picture ; the figures are introduced only for the sake of the light, which acts its part with them. The work shows more clearly than any other how deeply Velazquez was interested in optic pictorial problems ; it contains something of Art for Art’s sake. From two large windows — one breaking through the background from above, the other in the workshop — the sunlight streams in, consequently in two separate parallel beams, the former full, the latter limited. A joyous sunbeam, a straggling ray from a Madrid summer’s day, pours into the small “ show-room,” like a cataract that tumbles headlong from a cleft in the rocks, and disappears in the powdery spray. This beam, which owes its refulgence to the dusty atmosphere of the busy workshop, sheds such a blaze of light on the silken, woollen and golden tissues of the tapestry, and on the gaily attired ladies, effacing shadows and with them the bodily forms, that the dazzled eye might for a moment fancy the woven figures themselves were actors in the scene, or else that the senoras so conveniently disposed at the corners formed a group in the foreground of the arras itself. The subject of the tapestry, here the special object of interest, one would gladly wish to expound, the more so that owing to the arrange- ment the eye is constantly drawn towards it ; while the sun itself points as with a finger in the same direction. We discern a man with helmet and shield turned aside, his right hand raised either in the act of striking or pointing upwards. Before him stands a woman, gazing at him, her left hand enveloped in the mantle, her right extended as if in admiration of that heroic figure. Another woman, her arm screening her upturned face, seems to be scared away by two winged children. The three ladies inspecting the work are probably as puzzled as we are; for one of them has turned her pretty head round towards the atelier below, perhaps towards the palace marshal in the hope of an explanation from his erudition. The other two condescend to give us a sight only of their aristocratic shoulders and elegant head-dress, whose promise might possibly not be sustained by a front view. A master- piece such as this, which he is perhaps just in the act of sketching, could alone excuse a courtier and a Spaniard for leaving the ladies to themselves. Between this picture bathed in light and colour and the scene in the foreground there intervenes the neutral dark-grey of the blank wall. The Spinners. 43i But in this front and much larger chamber the light is unable to more than half subdue the gloom, because owing to the hot weather the window is mostly screened off by a heavy red curtain. The Tull light falls only on the white arms and soft neck and shoulders of the young girl who leans back winding off a ball of yarn from the reel. Some have recognized in her the model of the master’s Venus who also turns her back on the observer. Nor should the pretty foot here be overlooked. Through the dark door behind her another maiden has entered, and is placing a basket on the ground. The old woman at the spinning-wheel, as well as the girl who apparently at her request is drawing the curtain a little aside, receive only a strong reflected light reddened by the textile fabric close by. Lastly the young girl in the centre, half kneeling and carding wool, is also cut off from the light of the window on the left by the large pile of raw wool, and is consequently illumined only by the reflected light. But we can distinguish her face and her figure as little more than a silhouette , thanks to the glare caused by the sunlight diffused behind her. By the representation of this optical illusion, which real, not painted light is alone capable of producing, the artist has still further strengthened the seeming intensity of the sunlight. Owing to the light from the back- ground all these heads in chiaroscuro appear encircled by clear luminous contours. In the Meninas a chief feature is the gradual falling-off of the light towards the background. But here we have a triumphant realization of the motive with which Spanish and Dutch contemporary painters were occupied, and which consisted in breaking through the background by the highest luminous intensity with dispersion and gradual decrease towards the foreground. Only to soften the sharp contrast a limited patch of full pure light was reserved in the dark background of the former, in the gloomy foreground of the latter work. Thus in this painting essays had to be made with various manners of simultaneous lighting, attempts being made to paint luminous phenomena difficult to be represented and never before actually represented. £uch were the direct sunlight thrown off from bright objects ; the same light piercing through transparencies ; the uncertain glare caused by dis- persion or irradiation ; the beam rendered visible by refraction on the particles of dust suspended in the air ; the spokes of the wheel merged by rapid rotation in concentric circles ; the glimmer of many-coloured woven fabrics. With a delicate sense of harmony the contrast between the sunlit 432 Velazquez. alcove and curtained workshop is balanced by the toning effect of the cool blue in the former and of the warm red in the shadows of the latter. The "sun painter” Van der Meer also introduces blue into his luminosities. But who has ever before more searchingly studied the action of the sun, which here before our eyes weaves pictures with its divers radiations ? Here it seems at work with its magic spells, quivering on silken tissues, fondling a dazzling white neck, merging in coal-black Castilian locks, giving plastic distinctness to one object, throwing a hazy weft over another, dissolving the substantial in the imponderable, giving to flatness the round- ness of life, transforming the real to an image, the image to a vision. Here we feel with the physicist that light is motion, and on every tongue hovers the exclamation, " Symphony of colours ! ” If now we turn from this last to the master’s first popular subject, the Bacchus, we find in that work a scene in the open depicted in the light of an interior (p. 142), in the Spinners the triumph of light and colour in a vaulted space. This is also Velazquez’ most animated picture ; a picture in which the representation of motion in the motionless could scarcely be carried farther. This impression is even heightened by the forms and lines. That network of stiff parallel lines in the Meninas is here replaced by circular lines, as in the scheme of the groups, in the arched ceiling and round window of the recess, in the implements of the craftswomen. And as after a certain point motion becomes audible, the picture seems filled with the most marvellous concert of sounds, the whiz of the spinning- wheel, the creaking reel, the purring cat and the subdued chatter of the ladies in the distant background. Amid the vast changes in the artist’s manner of painting during the thirty years intervening between the Bacchus and the Spinners, we still observe a fundamental uniformity in the principles of the composition. He everywhere employs circular or elliptical forms, with which it is easy to get any variety you please in the diverse aspects of figures and incidences of light. In the Bacchus and the Vulcan a chief figure stands over against the open circle, at once as the converging point of the interest and partly also of the glances. In the Breda two masses develop semicircles, out of which the leading actors advance towards each other; in the Spinners we have two independent circles. From all this it is evident how those are at fault, who group Velazquez with that class of realists who regard as academic rubbish the traditions of the old schools regarding the art of the composition. The master’s careful forethought is shown in the treatment of the Dwarfs and Jesters. 433 colours, which here differs altogether from his usual manner. For the cool and pale hues elsewhere customary he substitutes warm, pure, sur- charged tints. And as Peter de Hooghe and Jan van der Meer, who depicted similar effects, are distinguished from nearly all contemporary cabinet painters by their use of thick pigments, Velazquez also against his usual habit here applies a rich impasto to a thick white priming. Whether it be owing to this, or to the powerful drying process, or to some accident, such as a fire, certain it is that the surface is in a condition that has not been noticed in any other of his works. It exhi- bits a uniform network of cracks, or rather — and this is the curious point — of raised welts, as if the priming had welled up through the cracks. Mengs, who describes it as in its way a work of unique character, a work not so much of the hand as of the will, was properly speaking its discoverer ; by Palomino it is not even mentioned. At first it was in Buen Retiro, afterwards (1789) in the billiard-room of Charles III.’s palace. Dwarfs, Buffoons and Jesters. So early as the sixteenth century the Italians were already struck by the Spanish taste for buffoonery. Flogel, author of a history of grotesque humour was of opinion that, owing to their extravagant and heated imagi- nation, the Spaniards surpassed all European peoples in the " grotesque comic.” The fact, however, may be due to their very earnestness. As the serious ecclesiastical order — ” says Jean Paul Richter — "has most comedians, the grave Spaniards have more farces than any nation, and often two harlequins in one piece.” The shackles by which the Spanish spirit was fettered, the taste for trivial details, the juxtaposition of mediaeval and modern culture — the former surviving far longer in Spain than elsewhere, all this produced frictions, whence flashed the spark of comedy. This association of the old and the new was never more conspicuous than in the seventeenth century, which was ushered in with Cervantes’ famous work. Then were revived obsolete forms, the taste for which had otherwise already perished. The serious and burlesque, the elevated and vulgar, ecstasy and blasphemy, were never more freely interwoven in poetry, art and religion than now. Paolo Tiepolo ( Report for 1563) was amazed to find Italian carnivalesque practices entering into the most solemn Spanish religious festivals ; such were masquerading, dancing, comedies, love-making, and the antics of merry-andrews. "Calderon’s Autos',' says Flogel, “ for their monstrous intermingling of the sacred and profane almost exceed in extravagance everything ever before imagined in comic literature.” 28 434 Velazquez. As the stale jokes of the graciosos were indispensable to the pathetic drama, and the ridiculous monstrosities to every Corpus Christi proces- sion, so also one of the Court painter’s inevitable tasks was to paint the royal clowns, whose portraits formed a traditional embellishment of certain parts of the king’s palaces. These subjects have now been promoted in the Prado Gallery to take their place by the side of their former masters, from whom they had anyhow been inseparable in life. Several have disappeared ; but, including jesters, dwarfs, clowns and buffoons, either treated independently or introduced as secondary figures in other paintings, there still remain about a dozen original portraits of this sort by the hand of our master — a unique collection in its way, the lowest step on the pyramid of old Spanish society. Under Leo X. — the golden age of Court fools — poetic skill was still required of them, as in mediaeval times. By such skill fame was acquired by that arch-poet Camillo Querno, who went mounted on an elephant to receive the poet’s crown on the Capitol, and with whom the pope himself exchanged impromptu verses. But in the seventeenth century a “ division of labour” had long set in. The Court poets recalled the mediaeval jongleurs only in their ready improvizations at the beck of royalty. And as the poets have been mentioned in this connection, it may be regretted that nowhere in the Alcazar was any out-of-the-way place ever set apart as a “ Poets’ Corner.” Pietro Aretino proposed the question, whether the wit of the learned or the jests of clowns were most agreeable to Leo X. ; and Boileau complained that at Court — Et l’esprit le plus beau, l’auteur le plus poli N’y parviendra jamais au sort de l’Angely. 1 But with all its inventive activity this epoch produced little that did not depend on precedents or prototypes of the past. Charles V. is credited with the saying that the Spaniards seem wise and are fools ; the Italians seem and are wise; the French seem fools and are wise; the Germans seem and are fools . 2 It lay in the spirit of the times to regard human things as a function of this contrast. The importance Charles attached to the part of the clown is evident from the names of the artists who had to consent to paint these subjects for him. A dwarf presented to him by Sigmund of Poland, and described as quick, well-bred and clever, was probably the truanillo (little clown) Stanislaus, painted by Titian. 1 Louis XIV. ’s buffoon. * This last was also Carlyle’s opinion of the inhabitants of these islands — “ mostly fools.” — Translator. Dwarfs and Jesters. 435 Two portraits of this class by Antonio Moro are also extant. One of these is Pejeron, a clown belonging to the Count of Benavente, who must have been a great favourite at Court. His portrait is already mentioned in Philip II.’s inventory, where it is valued at twelve ducats. The other is the fine portrait in the Louvre representing a dwarf with a large dog wearing the imperial arms on his collar. This mannikin has the malignant features of an ugly hunchback. A similar picture was formerly in the Madrid palace near the emperor’s portrait. Despite his dry temperament, Philip II. was also fond of the grotesque. On his journey to England he was accompanied by a large number of dwarfs, and those painted for him by Alonso Sanchez Coello were at the end of the seventeenth century still hanging on the staircase leading to the north gallery in the Alcazar. At that time a certain mystery in the sense of the ancients surrounded these lack-wits, who were occasionally regarded as inspired or uncanny folk. When Cardinal Hugo Buoncompagni accompanied by the prelates Felice Peretti and Niccolo Sfondrati came to Madrid about the affair of Archbishop Carranza, and all three were one day at table with Philip II., a buffoon is said to have asked the king whether he was aware that three popes were dining with him, at the same time tapping the trio on the shoulder. These were afterwards Gregory XIII., Sixtus V., and Gregory XIV. respectively. In Philip II.’s inventory reference is made to a large number of portraits of buffoons. There were Sanchez Coello’s Morata, perhaps the prototype of El Primo ; Martin de Aguas (two versions) ; a small plump clown grouped with a gigantic Catalonian peasant, besides a dwarf in red dress belonging to Don Carlos, Cristobal Cornelio. Frequent mention occurs of Magdalena Ruiz, who belonged to Princess Juana of Portugal, from whom she appears to have passed to the Infanta Isabella. But who is the pretty little mite introduced into the portrait of Philip II.’s daughter in Hampton Court (No. 343), which has been attributed to Pourbus, but which is probably by Pantoja de la Cruz ? The Neapolitan comic element seems to have also been represented, as shown by the half-length figure of the Calabrian in black dress with gold chain. There was, moreover, the Portuguese Catalina, a half-length figure in a widow’s white cap which hung in the jewel-room between Philip II. and Don Juan of Austria. With the dwarfs may be grouped the monstrosities, such as Brigida del Rio, known as the “ Bearded Woman of Penaranda ”, who appeared in Madrid in 1590, and the “Frizzly Girl” ( la mina encrespadci) both at that time in the Pardo. 436 Velazquez. The head, which under Philip II. had played first fiddle, under Philip III. took the lowest place, and thus fooldom acquired more consideration than ever. At the festivities on the occasion of this king’s marriage in 1599, Lope de Vega appeared in the role of a clown. From a report on his Court for the year 1611, in the Royal Library, Berlin, we learn that the unmarried grandees, especially those from the provinces, constantly kept open table, to which were invited the more influential courtiers. At these entertainments it was also considered politic to honour the royal buffoons, “because they are the trumpets and eyes of everything they see and hear.” In the Pardo were formerly the portraits of Bonamic and Don Antonio with his dog Baylan ( Vaillant ), both by Pantoja de la Cruz. Characteristic for the social feeling are the letters of an Italian pantaloon, a unique document preserved in the archives of Mantua. In the year 1604, Don Geronimo Fonati of that place went to Valladolid, where he was well received by the Court grandees, and presented to the king, who forth- with gave him a costume valued at five hundred crowns. Being a gambler, he got on very well, and wrote to Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Modena: “ I have here measured swords with knights of my profession, and have carried off the palm of infamy from all of them. But I fear it will be impossible to get the better of the cavaliers, for instead of cash they pay me with gravity.” At his departure from Spain, the Modenese envoy recom- mended him to the duke, hinting that Fonati “will be able to give him full information on the Spanish Court, where in a short space of time he experienced all kinds of good and adverse fortune.” But the zany never stood so high as under Philip IV., who was at once moody and frivolous. The boredom of kings may become rpore formidable than that of ordinary mortals — for ministers, retainers, subjects, and the peace of the world itself. In one of his plays Calderon intro- duces a king who offers his fool a hundred crowns for every time he succeeds in making him laugh, and if he fails for a whole month he is to have a tooth knocked out. Philip IV. was one of those great personages, of whom Erasmus tells us in his Praise of Folly that without their fools they can neither eat nor drink nor while away a single hour. These A fools are inseparable from him, appearing in the theatre, at festivities, and public audiences by his side, and having free access everywhere. At the bull-baiting in honour of the Duke of Modena (1638) they were seated near the royal couple at the foot of the throne, wearing the costume of ancient Castilian kings. Later Emanuel Gomez, an ayuda de camara, became one of the most in- fluential persons at Philip’s Court. He had been to Italy and Florence, and 437 Dwarfs and Jesters. was even regarded by diplomatists as a long-headed politician, although his “ speciality ” was an amusing, at times daring, imitation of voice and gesture. With this mimicry he relieved the king’s melancholy, even at the cost of royalty itself. He even ventured to take off the papal nunzio when conduct- ing the service in the palace chapel. He reported to Philip the doings in the capital and the Court gossip. The nobles suitors, and ambassadors sought the favour of his company at table, as he could easily put in a word at the right moment, and when this happened he expected to be paid with something more substantial than banquets. At an audience in 1661 the Tuscan envoy Vieri Castiglione paid him down six “ pieces of eight.” But even at that time there were not lacking voices which anticipated the judgment of posterity on this strange custom. In the Dreams, Quevedo coming suddenly on a cold place in the lower regions is told that this is reserved for the fools, who are kept here together lest their frosty jokes might temper the glow of the fiery furnace. Then the taste for such diversions, lessened during the epoch of Louis XIV., died out before the close of the eighteenth century. Even in Rome the wit of Pasquino was played out after the introduction of a free Press. The Court fools in fact represented freedom 6f speech in its most degraded form. The works of our master dealing with this class of subjects are separated by long intervals of time, the whole series ranging from the middle of the third to the end of the fifth decade v As, however, a biography is not exactly a chronological table, and as most of them belong to the last period, they may here be conveniently treated together K especially as there may be more system in this branch of portraiture than appears on the surface. For have we not the dry, the moody, and the irritable clown ; sinister and cheerful distraction ; the soft puerile brain of the simpleton and the marastic mood of eccentricity ; the pensive misanthropist ; the malicious imp of mischief ; lastly, the laughing and the weeping philosopher ? These pictures were found in three different places, for which they had been expressly painted. The truhanes, hombres de placer (jesters, clowns, buffoons), of normal and even fine physical type, were destined for Buen Retiro. The dwarfs and “naturals” were placed with their predecessors on the staircase leading to the north gallery of the Alcazar. With these are asso- ciated two ragamuffins in the Torre de la Parada whose pictorial adornment was almost entirely taken from antique subjects. At that time dwarfs, like favourite dogs, were often introduced into the portraits of their masters. Van Dyck painted Queen Henrietta Maria with the dwarf Jeffrey Hudson, as in the portraits in the Northbrook Gallery and in Petworth. In Rubens’ fine picture of the Marchioness Maria 438 Velazquez. Grimaldi in Kingston Lacy, the dainty Genoese lady is associated with an old dwarf whose enormous head is stamped with brutal, malevolent features. The artist used the same model for the monstrous figure of a Levite in the Adulteress before Christ. Even now handsome women like to be seen in the company of their ill-favoured friends. But Velazquez grouped these monsters only with royal children , as in the Meninas and the portrait of Don Balthasar. Cristobal de Pernia. Palomino tells us (p. 335) that he saw in Buen Retiro portraits of Philip IV.’s buffoons, or sabandijas, as they were also called. The inventory prepared at the death of Charles II. also gives their names, with a brief but sufficient description of each. They comprised three good-sized pictures (2^ x 2 \ ells) named respectively Pablillos el de Valladolid, with the goli/la ; Pernia, or Barbarossa, in a Turkish dress; and Don Juan of Austria (real name unknown), with pieces of armour on the ground. The last two seem to be pendants. Besides these there were three smaller works (l 4 varas square): Cardenas, the bull-fighter, with hat in hand, in Velazquez’ first manner ; Ochoa, Court doorkeeper ; and Calabagas, or Calabacillas, with a note in one hand and a portrait in the other. These last have all disappeared. In the inventory each of the three portraits is valued at twenty-five doubloons. All particulars regarding these persons, at that time better known in the capital, and more courted than many distinguished generals and authors, were naturally soon forgotten after their death. In the inventory made under the Bourbon dynasty, Don Juan is called the Artillero and Barbarossa a Moor, while in the catalogue of 1845 Pablillos is promoted to the position of a famous contemporary actor. Thanks to such new-fangled titles these figures lost their comic element, which lay partly in the contrast between their outward form and their real avocation, which at the time was of course known to everybody. All three are genuine racial types, which are frequently met in Spain. They belonged to the class of lower Court menials, for instance, not being above asking for “ tips ” at audiences. They were always available at the shortest notice for diversions and revelries of the lowest category. Thus, in the Carnival of the year 1636, they were all brought together and plied with drink “in order to make them more apt for jesting and being made fun of” ( Florentine Despatch, Feb. 9, 1636). Athough formally installed and paid, they are not always figured “in character,” in their professional garb and Pernia. 439 gestures ; hence in after times it became possible to take seriously the nicknames, such as Barbarossa, Don Juan, etc., by which they were known to their contemporaries. Such was the national love of personal dignity even in dishonourable walks in life, that later generations saw no incongruity between those grand names and the portraits to which they are attached. The trait is well illustrated by the story of the Spaniard who was condemned to be flogged through the street, but who, when urged to quicken his pace in order the sooner to get it over, replied : “ I am not going to forget my honour for a hundred lashes more or less.” At the time the most noted of these personages was Cristobal de Pernia (Prado, No. 1093), who received double pay and extorted what he liked from the courtiers. But he was a spendthrift, always in debt, and once got banished to Seville (1634) because he had roused the anger of Olivares, as afterwards appeared. The king, when hunting in Balsain, having asked for olives was told by the caterer that there were none ; whereupon Pernia struck in “ neither olives nor Olivares.” And this mildest of puns was enough for the great man to lose his temper. Don Cristobal, here represented in his fortieth year, was a man of good figure, and firm carriage, stout, with rolling eyes, forehead prominent below, mustachio, altogether suited for the part of a swashbuckler." These buffoons had not only to take off prominent living persons, but also to represent noted historical characters. From this circumstance Pernia received the name of Barbarossa, that Algerine corsair, who in the previous century had been the scourge of the Spanish seaboard, and whose physical appearance was still familiar to all. In the old palace was hung his portrait in turban and brocaded robe, jointly with other great men of the Mohammedan world. On festive occasions he appeared in Turkish costume, as the artist has here partly represented him — red coat and white cloak of Moorish cut, but with the red white-edged fool’s cap. At the bull-fight in 1633, he presented himself in a large turban with curved scimitar followed by halbert-bearers. Having saluted the king with a grimace he entered the arena ; but the first beast after eyeing the strange apparition from several points of view decided at last to turn tail. Not so the second, who, infuriated at the red cloth, took him horse and all on his horns. Possibly he is here figured as toreador, although the long coat is scarcely suited for the part. Pie has duly thrown the folded cloak over his left shoulder, thus leaving the body free, and holds the sword as if in expectation of an attack. The scabbard is in his left hand, and his eye appears to be following the bull with a threatening glance. 440 Velazquez. The picture, like the next, is but partly finished, perhaps intentionally — good enough as it was for such a subject, the artist may have thought The cloak alone has been modelled with extreme care, as if for a study. The work has been etched by Goya. Don Juan de Austria. Over against the Barbary corsair hangs the Spanish “ sea-dog,” Don Juan'de Austria (Prado, 1094), now known only by this nom dc guerre. That this humourist should have received the name of the hero of Lepanto, Philip’s great-uncle — a name, too, conferred by the king on his most DON JUAN DE AUSTRIA. Don Juan. 44 1 promising natural son (Don Juan de Austria II.) — shows how unpreju- diced people were in such matters, even where the great departed of the royal family were 'concerned. In more recent times the work as engraved by Lingee in 1824, has circulated under the name of the Mexican hero Fernando Cortez. Here we have a tall haggard figure, bowed with the burden of some sixty years — a hungry looking face, the small deepset eyes overshadowed by bushy black eyebrows, toothless mouth covered by scrubby mustachio, thin knees bent outwards. Thus one pictures to oneself those captains, the bone and sinew of vigorous Castilian manhood, who moulded the riffraff of society into the iron phalanxes of that famous Spanish infantry. Men of sound physique, inexhaustible humour, keen sense of honour, trust- worthy, frugal, cruel, fatalistic, who after sacrificing their best years, their strength and means in the king’s service, were often not so much as paid ; and after returning from the wars they were to be seen hanging about the antechamber of the secretary of war, pitiful, grim-looking figures, broken down with wounds, age, and hunger : Viejo y enfermo de servirle en guen'a , eii fuego indiano , y en flamenco frio . 1 Here the enquiring uncertain glance seems awaiting the appearance of his Excellence, only to be once more consoled with the remark that honour is the Spaniard’s reward. But this knight of doleful mien here appears in the rich dress of a royal prince — black velvet vest and cloak, the latter lined and faced with red silk, slashed crimson sleeves and hose,- pink stockings with large bows at the knees and on the shoes, exceedingly broad hat with red band and huge feather. The bony left hand rests on the sword-hilt, the right holds a long stick with red tassel. In the girdle is stuck an iron key, and on the marble floor are strewn the implements of war : helmet, musket, bomb, cannon-ball, cuirass. Through the open window is seen a marine view with a raging sea- fight, as in Titian’s portrait of Philip II. with his son Ferdinand. It represents the grand vizier’s Capitana sunk at Lepanto by Don Juan, who has now hastily thrown aside his “ bruised arms ” in order in festive attire to receive the felicitations of the Farnese, the Colonna, and the other captains. 1 “ Old and feeble from serving thee in war, amid the Indian heats and frosts of Flanders.” — Lope. 442 Velazquez. Pablillos de Valladolid. The third pantaloon, Pablillos de Valladolid (Prado, 1092) appears in Court dress -painted in black, white and brown alone, on a perfectly blank light-grey ground broken only by the shadow of the legs. This is the PABLILLOS DE VALLADOLID. solitary portrait ot the class in which the gesture of the mime cannot possibly be mistaken. He seems to have stept to the front of the stage, where he stands with outspread legs, the cloak wrapped tight round his body and thrown over his left shoulder. His half-open right hand is extended a little downwards, as if he were retailing to the public some Pablillos. 443 good joke perhaps at the expense of some notable person in that direction. Pose, gesture, countenance, correspond to a nicety with the outburst of laughter doubtless provoked by the humorous quip drily uttered by apparently the most innocent of beings. This is a laughter-compelling head, with retreating narrow brow, large cheekbones, wide lips, short receding chin ; the bushy eyebrows, lashes and short full beard as if moth-eaten. The hands, which say so much, are modelled with exceptional care and thoroughness. In the Leganes Gallery there were also portraits of this Pablillos and of Pernia (1665). The three remaining buffoons got lost on the way between Buen Retiro and the palace. In Rossie Priory, Scotland, there is a portrait of a doorkeeper, which passes as a Velazquez. At the first glance it might be taken for the above-mentioned Ochoa — an elderly man in black drawing back a portiere , bending forward to the left and delivering a letter, on which however the name of the painter is not written. It is a head of sharp, noble form, with well-shaped high forehead and air of intelligence and resignation. But the figure, on a black ground, is merely sketched, showing scarcely the outlines of the hands ; the face also, on a blackish green priming, is much damaged. All the greater care and lavish display of colour have been bestowed on the heavy door-hanging, a gorgeous Turkey pattern with meandering black forms on a red ground, and wide border on white. This splendid piece occupies a good half of the surface, and is obviously designed for the purpose of illusion. The picture served probably as the portiere of an inner door, and was intended to mystify visitors. Unfortunately a closer inspection fails to detect the hand of our master, which is yet so easily recognized in sketchy productions. The Marquis del Borro. Since the year 1873 a presumable Velazquez exists in Berlin, the question of whose authenticity is still sub judice. The portrait, which was acquired in Arezzo, comes from the Villa Passerini at Cortona. Our “pretender,” a man of the Falstaff type, stands on a banner, taking the measure of the spectators (perhaps the captives) with a defiant glance at once malicious and courtly. This glance seems to say : “ Thus I tread on your necks.” He at the same time lifts' the hem of his cloak, while the left hand rests on the belt of his long sword. One might fancy Falstaff somewhat in this attitude as he vapours over the dead body 444 Velazquez. of Hotspur. In the gesture, in the blustering air, there seems to lurk something more than moral obliquity of vision. One might even suspect a touch of insanity ; at least I remember to have seen a bedlamite standing thus motionless in the middle of his cell, and annihilating the visitors with a similar glance of ineffable scorn. Was there possibly a captain at that time who could so offend against the proprieties as to trample on a flag captured in honourable combat, and then allow his name to be perpetuated in this unseemly fashion ? But what we cannot bring ourselves to do, we may at times by a nod or a wink get done by an obsequious instrument. To judge of the character from the canvas, we should unconditionally class him with those waggish clowns here figured, and in the language of Don Geronimo Fonati even award him “ the palm of infamy.” Accordingly, let him in any case here bide, in the company which he has himself chosen. “ He might serve,” says H. Wallis, “for a model for an antique comic mask. Tliere is nothing more humorous in Jan Steen, and in portraiture it is certainly unique.” 1 Yet he appears after all to be a real captain; for in the Uffizi Portrait Gallery (now in the gallery leading to the Pitti, No. 252) there is a similar head of that Tuscan Marquis Alexander del Borro, lieutenant of Prince Matteo, commander of the forces of Grand Duke Ferdinand II. in the war against Pope Urban VIII., whose arms, the golden bees, are embroidered on the red-and-white flag in the Berlin picture. Hence the portrait must have been painted soon after that invasion of the Papal States (1643) in which Borro in the face of superior forces captured the towns of Citta della pieve and Castiglion del lago. We read, for instance, that in Pieve the Barberini arms were torn down, the blank papal shield being left intact by way of protest on the part of the Grand Duke that he had no intention of retaining that place. Nor is our information regarding Borro at variance with this picture. Later, when he entered the Venetian service (1652) the envoy Basadonna in Madrid drew up a report in which he described him as a “ very great soldier and captain, although it cannot be denied that in his extravagant and versatile humour, and sometimes in his excessive hair-splitting in affairs he does not belie the Tuscan nationality.” The treatment of the light is very peculiar, and may perhaps give a clue to the origin of the work. It falls on the left side from below, as if the figure were standing before the footlights of a stage, or on the upper steps of a staircase, coming forward to receive an ovation. The luminosity sweeps 1 Athenaeum , December 8, 1877. Borro. 445 over the full-worn face, cheeks and neck, kindling a bright glow on the snub nose. Is this a practical joke played by Grand Duke Ferdinand on his corpulent condottiere ? A similar method of lighting occurs elsewhere on decorative figures for triumphal arches, as, for instance, in those sketched by Rubens in the Belvedere. The picture looks like an impromptu at revelries over the victory, and seems as if suffused with the fumes of the feast ; hence its stupendous vividness, which makes it as a portrait quite a peculiar work. The startling bluntness with which this cynical personality is portrayed on the canvas is rendered more piquant by its contrast with the dignity one expects to meet in portraits of such a size and festive character. This strange picture is one of those which, seen in a reproduction such as a photograph, might doubtless pass for a Velazquez ; but in the presence of the original doubts arise which end in absolute incredulity. But apart from internal evidence, the chronology of the work also militates against his authorship. Judging from its style vve should have to refer it to a very early period. But before the middle of the century Velazquez could have met Borro only during his first Italian journey, consequently before the Barberini war. Later, however, this “ free lance ” entered the Spanish service, was received in Madrid "with extraordinary courtesy” (1649), and appointed maestre de campo and general of a Spanish fleet. Next year he was so successful in the Catalonian campaign that in the capital “ it seemed like a wonder.” But he quarrelled with the commander-in-chief, and in the summer of 1651 returned to Madrid, determined to quit the Spanish service. Velazquez had just then returned from Italy. But after the laurels earned in the Catalonian campaign the reminiscences of Borro’s doughty deeds in the petty warfare with the Barberini would surely seem out of place. And is it to be supposed that a Spanish Court painter would have obliged an Italian soldier of fortune by insulting the banner of a family from which he had received many favours? — the arms of a pope who had given him a residence in his own palace ? And how can the style of the work be reconciled with the later manner of our master, who the year before had executed such a portrait as that of Innocent X. ? The Dwarfs. The custom of entertaining Court dwarfs had come from the East to Imperial Rome, and had persisted throughout mediaeval times down to the Revolution. They were brought from every corner of Europe, dressed 446 Velazquez. in costly garments and adorned with gold and jewellery. Vigenerus describes a feast given by Cardinal Vitelli in Rome, at which the guests were waited on by forty-four ill-favoured and misshapen pigmies. Buckingham presented the queen with a pie, in which he had put the dwarf Jeffrey Hudson, at that time measuring only 18 inches. His life- size portrait by Mytens, which is now in Hampton Court, represents him as a fair little fellow, with large animated blue eyes and long upper lip, arrayed in a cavalier’s scarlet coat and mantle, in a soft green wooded landscape by Janssens. These creatures were often inseparable from their princely masters, fondled and treated just like faithful dogs. As the company of the dog flatters man by the feeling of absolute dependence and devotion, in the same way the normal man becomes more conscious of his size and strength in the presence of a dwarf, and this corresponds to the aristo- cratic sentiment prevalent in those times. They appreciated specimens of exceptional ugliness, and the Calibans served the purpose of foils when brought into association with the refined figures of noble youths and maidens. Absolute ugliness is rarer than is supposed, and of all the clowns in the Prado not one could compare in this respect with Claus Narr, for instance, in the Augsburg Gallery (No. 665). Lastly, there is the comic contrast, as of the head of a sullen old man on a child’s body ; of a child’s figure with the voice, the passions and fancies of age, the humour of harmless malice. No less than five of such beings by the hand of Velazquez are still preserved in the Prado — three apparently rational, two idiots. Originally they accompanied those belonging to Philip II. painted by Sanchez Coello and hung on the steps leading to the northern gallery. Although their names are partly entered in the inventory — Sebastian de Morra (since 1643), El Primo, Velazquillo el Bufon (in Buen Retiro so lat-e as 1794) — it is no longer possible to identify the several portraits by these names. The lot was valued in 1700 at forty doubloons. One (Prado, 1097) is painted after the model of Charles V.’s dwarf by Antonio Moro, full-length standing with a dog held by a red spring, as if in preparation for some royal hunting-party. That prototype with the dry old pug face was more of a cold-blooded malevolent disposition, whereas his successor seems rather impetuous, not naturally evil, but irascible, judging at least from the threatening rolling eyes and heated colour. He is in a constant state of fume and flutter against big people and especially against their fine aristocratic noses, for his own is extremely Sebastian de Morra. 447 small, like that of his colleague at the Court of Louis XIV., the famous Duke of Roquelaure. The contrast is very comical between the stormy little fellow and the quiet dignity of the huge black dog with white face and throat, resembling the hound in the Stag-hunt. His haughty air seems inspired by his grand costume, for he is dressed as a great Flemish lord, probably the parody of some notability. He wears a long fair wig with red bows, wide lace collar and cuffs, gold embroidered doublet and hose ; in his right hand he holds his broad-brimmed hat swamped by ostrich feathers. This is the best painted portrait of the series, executed in a golden tone in our master’s best manner. The catalogue calls him Don Antonio the Englishman, though to others the type has seemed more Spanish. In the so-called Painters in the Louvre there occurs a figure with a similar head (size 1*42 x ro,7 metre). Sebastian de Morra. The sinister disposition of the pigmy tribe assumes an air of defiant malevolence in the black “ pessimist ” seated, and at a venture christened SEBASTIAN DE MORRA. Sebastian de Morra (Prado, 1096) — a square, bearded head, of brownish complexion, ox-browed, with pronounced “ bump of destructiveness.” Seen from the front the figure seems very broad, and he looks straight out 448 Velazquez. stretching his legs forward in parallel lines, the hands also parallel, but turned inwards and resting on the thighs. Everything here is cubic and rectangular. You feel that, if you venture to stand and look at him you will be received with a volume of abusive language. An inquisitorial judge could scarcely overawe a wealthy Jewish apostate with more terribly piercing glance. His costume, however, is variegated — a red gold-embroidered cloak and wide lace collar over green doublet and hose. From the style of execution the work should be referred to the fifth decade. Originally the frame closed round in form of a crescent, so that the figure seemed crouching like a watch-dog in his house. An indifferent old copy was formerly in the Salamanca Gallery; etched in 1798 by Goya (size uo6 x o - 8l metre). El Primo. At the time when Velazquez was at Fraga (1644), engaged on a portrait of the king, he also painted the dwarf El Primo. An explorer amongst musty records has discovered that a dwarf bearing this name just about the same time also received a present of a black velvet dress, and it so happens that our little man (Prado, 1095) is the only one of the series dressed in black. This pigmy accompanied the Court on its yearly journeys to Saragossa during the Catalonian revolt. Olivares, who was yearly growing more gloomy, often took him with him in his carriage ; at the review in Molina a musket went off, sending a bullet into the carriage, a splinter from which wounded his secretary Carnero and El Primo. On a slender figure, which a smart black Court dress suits well, is planted an old serious head, with very expansive brow, left visible by the jauntily worn slouch-hat. On his thigh rests a huge folio volume, one page of which he is in the act of turning over, his diminutive proportions being measured by the size of the tome. Disturbed in his studies by the noise of somebody passing by he looks angrily up with a look of scorn for the unread profane. The results of his researches he seems to be recording in the notebook which lies on the ground, and on which stands an ink-bottle. He is seated in the centre of the canvas, the background being formed by a mountain landscape like those of the equestrian portraits. We may take the folio to be a genealogical work, and as the king calls him Cousin (el primo), he is doubtless looking up the family connection. Or is it a “ doomsday-book,” from which he seeks to establish his claim to those waste lands in the rear ? Possibly amongst the descendants of the heroes of the re-conquest there may have been hidalgos who had shrunk to these El Primo. 449 diminutive proportions ; anyhow heads which still bore a family likeness to those matamoros were found on the bodies of such puny mortals. In the glance of El Primo himself we detect the pride of the oldest nobility in the land. On the landscape are still visible traces of irregular vertical brown lines, which appear to have been taken for the stumps of trees on the folds of a EL PRIMO. curtain painted over. But they are nothing more than strokes of the brush, which were intended to efface an earlier background ; the landscape after- wards broadly applied with a bristly brush failed to completely conceal these strokes. The background seems to have at first been intended to represent an interior, for which the books and writing materials as well as the shadows are more suited (size ro7 x o - 82 metre). Idiots and Imbeciles. We come lastly to the two portraits taken in the last decade, El Bobo de Coria (No. 1099) and El Nino de Vallecas (No. 1098), idiots in the strict sense of the term. Such beings, in whom humanity reaches its lowest stage of debasement, are also included amongst the comic elements attached to the royal palace. These half-witted creatures are often known to betray a fancy for ludicrous gestures and notions, and even occasionally display certain talents of a onesided technical order, as many of our readers may have observed in Alpine villages where cretins abound. In Lope’s romance of 29 450 Velazquez. The Pilgrim an Italian count appears at the madhouse at Valencia, and offers a hundred crowns for a simpleton, whom he wants to keep for his amusement. At present we find it difficult to comprehend a state of social intellectual and aesthetic culture, which was capable of enduring, and could even take pleasure in, the daily association of such half-human beings. We look on them rather with horror and a feeling of pity. At the same time we should not always judge by moral standards what was based only on the rudeness of former generations ; much that we now call humanity is merely an outcome of a morbid sentiment peculiar to the age. That very bedlam in Valencia was perhaps the first institution in which mental disease was treated in a comparatively humane or even rational manner. The “ melan- choly mad,” for instance, were not kept in confinement, but even occasionally taken to entertainments and indulged with wine and other “ treats.” That asylum ( hospital dels foils') had been founded in the year 1409 by Bernardo Andreu, in consequence of a Lenten sermon preached by the worthy Brother Gilaberto Jofre on behalf of the numerous imbeciles wandering about the city. According to Lope’s description in his play of Los locos de Valencia, it passed for a wonder of the world, and was visited by many strangers. And here it may be well to remark that furious maniacs are as rare in Spain as they are numerous, for instance, in France. The Bobo of Coria is a fearful picture of idiotcy and its vacant laughter. The figure is cowering on the ground, the left leg resting on the cloak ; the right knee is raised and on it rests the open left hand, which he digs with his right fist to express his jubilation at being painted ; gourds on both sides, an earthen cup in front. The leering, grinning face stretched forward surmounts a wide lace collar. It seems that he cannot even dress himself. In contrast with this excitable nervous being is the heavy, dull Nino of Vallecas, evidently a case of hydrocephalus from birth. According to the inscription on the engraving by B. Vazquez (1792) he had come into the world already furnished with teeth, and of unusual size. Vallecas is a place lying four miles south-east of Madrid in a deep valley enclosed by mountains on the north and north-west ; and such are the ordinary physical features of districts subject to cretinism. The Nino (youth), dressed in a yellow flannel vest and long green overcoat, is seated at a gloomy, overhanging cliff, emblem of the heavy burden that presses on his brain, preventing the free flow of connected thoughts. The head is sunk on his neck ; the eyes are half-closed and expressionless, as if overcome by drowsiness ; the upper-lip is drawn upwards, The Philosophers. 45i while both hands grasp an indistinct object which he seems to have already forgotten. Under the engraving of this imbecile figure runs the legend : Estd en el cucirto del Rey nuestro senor, that is in the apartment of Charles IV. (size ro6 x ct 83 metre). The Philosophers. With the professional fools, the buffoons, en titre d' office, as they were called at the French Court, may naturally be grouped two wits, whom the artist has baptized with classical names. Although excluded by their sorry attire from Court company they nevertheless serve to complete its humour- istic section. They are the pantaloons of absolute freedom, raised above all considerations of vanity or official duties — in a word, as Lichtenberg described them, "free roving philosophers.” This speciality seems to have been introduced by Jusepe Ribera, who discovered the type in the slums of Naples, that former paradise of heedless indigence. Those painted by him are candidates for the galleys, picked up in the Vicoli del Mercato and Della Porta Capuana, and dressed up as philosophers and mathematicians. But the humour of the thing seems somewhat lost under the impression produced by their coarseness. Never- theless these brawny, hard-featured, sinister-looking, unsavoury louts must have met with great applause, for we constantly meet them in galleries* and they have been imitated in Italy by Giordano, in Spain by Esteban March. Esop. Here stands a grey-headed man with unusually shrunken tired face and dejected air. The low, narrow forehead, flat nose, small swollen eyes, sour mouth with hanging under-lip impart a strange, almost simian, ugliness to the features. He scorns the luxury of fine linen, though the loose dressing- gown is girdled by what may perhaps be a remnant of his last shirt, serving at the same time as a support for the hand thrust into the bosom of his robe. In his left hand he holds a parchment volume. On the ground to the left is a tub over which hangs a black shred of cloth, and to the right some gear in which will be recognized the harness of the ass on which he makes his rounds. All else in the way of furniture has been sent to the pawnbroker’s. We should have some difficulty in guessing the meaning of this character had not the artist given us the solution of the riddle in the upper right corner. Behind this dry countenance lurks caustic wit ; this small drowsy 452 Velazquez. eye conceals the faculty of observation ; the folio is the Book of Fables in which hoary wisdom stoops to the level of children ; for above stands inscribed the word iESOPVS. This was in Spain a familiar name, for did not even Sancho Panza ESOP. know that in the days of “ Guisopete ” the animals could talk ? Perhaps Velazquez had read in Ariosto that for astounding ugliness and uncleanli- ness Esop was unrivalled. But why has he forgotten that Esop was also a hunchback, seeing that there was no lack of models for deformity ? Perhaps the grey hair cropped short and the absence of beard are intended mows m Menippus. 453 to indicate the status of the slave amongst the ancients (size 1 79 x 0'94 metre). Menippus. A bearded man of like age stands in a den, whose only utensil is a water-jug standing on a board which is poised on two rounded stones, perhaps a feat in statics of which the owner is proud. On the other hand at his feet lie some objects which may possibly possess some intrinsic worth — an open folio on the left, a roll of parchment with an octavo volume on the right. With the self-respect of the Spanish mendicant he has thrown the black cloak over his shoulders ; on his head is a soft slouched felt hat, the brim of which is turned back from the forehead. He stands nearly in profile, turned to the right, but looking front with a glance which is half cynical and insinuating, half cringing, perhaps also somewhat con- temptuous. Is he some red-eyed dealer in curios watching the licentiate who is leaving the shop and on whom he has just palmed off a spurious imperial coin ? — or perhaps an amateur himself, who has declined a canon’s offer for some rare block-book ? But no ! These volumes at his feet must be compendiums of the scholastic wisdom which he despises, but which he reads, as Swift read bad books, to nourish his satirical gall ; for above we read MOENIPPVS. So we conclude that Velazquez has come across a translation of Lucian, that classical forerunner of Cervantes. This cynical author of the Dialogues of the Dead, the only laughing passenger in Charon’s boat, whose penury has left him without the obolus to pay the fare, who lived on beans despite Pythagoras’ injunction, 1 this bold scoffer of gods and heroes doubtless haunted our master’s memory, and was one day recognized by him in some second-hand dealer amongst the roughs of Madrid. Both “ philosophers ” were formerly in the Torre de la Parada, where they are mentioned in the inventory for 1703. Probably they were suggested to the artist by the figures of Heraclitus and Democritus which hung in the same place, having been brought by Rubens from Mantua in 1603. For these also represented the old contrast of the two pessimist buffoons, one weeping over, the other laughing at, the folly of mankind. In the same way we here see an intentional contrast consistently carried out between dignity and negligence ; appetite (looking for his beans in the sack) and indigestion ; short bristly and long soft wavy hair ; the restlessly 1 Although a “vegetarian’' Pythagoras proscribed beans as well as flesh, supposing them to have sprung from the same corrupt matter as mortals themselves. — Trans. 454 Velazquez. glittering eye of the importunate scoffer and the deadened look of the pensive speculator ; the long hooked and the broad flattened nose. Both however have evidently pushed their inquiries in the philosophy of the absolute equally forward, whole volumes of Stoic paradoxes have here been reduced to a practical issue. The south alone gives birth to the gymnosophist, to the philosophic tatterdemalion. In former times he was called Diogenes and Menippus ; later Dervish and Mendicant Friar. MENIPPUS. The Ugly in Art. 455 The modern countrymen of Quevedo and Cervantes appear too dry and pathetic to appreciate this humour of their forefathers, which had its profound as well as its extravagant aspect. “ We lack the jocular element,” remarked Jean Paul Richter, “simply through lack of the serious.” Thus in an article contributed by a Madrid writer to L Art, these figures are sup- posed to represent “ the moral ugliness of the cynic ; ” and it is explained that “ in this way the aristocratic painter of Philip IV. ’s elegant Court, brought up in the maxims of Aristotle, Plato and Seneca (!), wished to be revenged on the unclean philosophy that condemned luxury, despised Art, and darted its envenomed fang at the noble magnificence of the great of the earth.” But this writer would have been nearer the mark had he sought his moral ugliness behind the elegant figures of that “ brilliant Court” who danced attendance on a Juanillo, and who from pillars of the State became pillars of unmentionable places. Both of these portraits are fine specimens of Velazquez’ last manner, painted with a broad brush. The shimmering surface of the old yellow and brown complexions is especially reproduced with unapproachable truth. The Ugly in Art. In a general survey of our master’s life-work this gallery of. buffoons, dwarfs, idiots and ragamuffins belongs to the reverse side of his Art. In any treatise on the ^Esthetics of the Ugly assuredly the Spanish artist could not be overlooked. Amongst his endowments the sense of characterization was so pro- nounced that success in delineation stood in almost inverse ratio to the aesthetic value of the subject. His portrait gallery shows how chance itself threw in his way royal persons of exceptionally repellent types, and fashions in dress marked by monstrous perversions of good taste. He was more skilled in the portrayal of men than of women, while in the grasp of animal subjects he was unrivalled. He took greater interest in the morphological freaks than in the normal creations of Nature ; and as he laid more stress on peculiarities than on the harmony of the whole, beauty may often have had little reason to congratulate itself on falling into his hands. So also it fell to his lot to make deformity and “ pathological specimens ” a chief constituent of his life-work. Ugliness, always offensive to the eye, can in itself be no proper object of Art. Nor is characterization the highest function of the painter. Even if it be made to include the language of passion and animated description, it could at most constitute a good illustrator, and in this department dilettanti have often been more successful than great artists. Hogarth contains more 45 ^ Velazquez. diversity of characterization and of expression than all the Dutch artists together ; yet he was but a moderate painter. All this is merely the orthography by means of which artistic pro- ductions become legible for non-professionals ; and the unstudied impulse of half-barbaric times, when Art supplied the place of letters, often achieved success in this direction. When the artistic forms of a period become played out innovating movements set in which break completely with tradition. Then we are brought again face to face with infinite Nature, and under the influence of conflicting sentiments the ugly, the diversely constituted animal element in man, the chaos of the affections, once more come to the front. But however vividly these aspects of humanity may be treated, still they contain in themselves no new quickening phases of Art, though they have their significance as useful ingredients — the ugly, for instance, as a constituent element of the comic and humouristic side of Art. Figures like the Esop and Menippus, scenes such as the Borrachos and Vulcan, undoubtedly appeal to our sense of humour. Nay, could we fancy anyone assembling the whole company of Velazquez’ creations in a single work of poetic Art, we feel that he could scarcely adopt any other style but that, for instance, of a Thackeray. The humouristic style, says Jean Paul Richter, individualizes endlessly. It has been objected to the Dutch that for their national and social scenes they scarcely ever selected beautiful or noble forms, that some of their painters deliberately confined themselves to a narrow sphere of the coarsest ugliness. It would be an insult to the well-favoured Netherlandish race to suppose that the figures we meet in the works of an Ostade or a Rembrandt give an adequate idea of the Dutch national type. They have also been censured on the ground that their genre pieces are not only commonplace and trivial, but also morally far from spotless or pleasing ; that they rarely contain ethically beautiful types, which nevertheless, as shown by the Art of all periods, might surely be found even amid poverty and lowliness. Are we, therefore, to attribute this preference for wantonness and depravity, for tavern and courtesan life, to the tastes of a society already corrupted by material comfort and luxury ? But the true answer has long been given. The secret of Art is to render important and agreeable what may in reality be insignificant and even repulsive. It is the contrast of the vulgar and ugly with the allied refinement of a highly developed Art that gives these creations the right to exist. David Hume argued that the charm of the beautiful, which here lies in the representation alone, was enhanced by the effort to overcome Mythologies. 457 the resistance of what is in itself repulsive, just as its high state improves the flavour of game, or sharp sauces that of other meats. That this is the true explanation is shown by the fact that those who sought to elevate the moral tone, by the introduction of the purely agreeable in form and figure, were by no means so successful, as might have been expected. Mythologies. Like some of the earlier, the last works of this order appear to have also been painted at the special desire of the king ; at least they were destined for two places either built or re-furnished by Philip — the Torre de la Parada and the mirrored apartment in the Alcazar. In the former was hung, besides the Esop and Menippus, the picture of Mars the god of war; in the latter, four scenes with representations of Venus and Mercury. This apartment took its name from eight mirrors of uniform size — a size, however, which according to our ideas was modest enough. They were mounted in ebony frames crowned with a gilt bronze ornament taking the form of an eagle, whose wings enclosed the mirror. Such mirrors are seen in Carreno's portraits of Charles II. and the queen-dowager. The character of this mirrored chamber is sufficiently indicated by the great portraits of the five Habsburg princes: Charles V.; Philip II., with his young son Ferdinand after the battle of Lepanto, both by Titian ; Philip III. with the Expulsion of the Moriscos, by Velazquez; Philip IV. in his youth, by Rubens. To these was later added the last of the dynasty, Charles II., by Carreno. Above and between the windows, and Over the mirrors, were grouped the mythologies, together with a few scenes from the Old Testament. Here were seen the so-called Four Furies (Sisyphus and Associates) by Titian, besides four pieces by Tintoretto : Judith and Holofernes, Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Helen, Pyramus and Thisbe ; three biblical subjects by Paolo Veronese : Jacob and Rachel, Moses in the Nile, the Child Jesus in the Temple ; Bassano’s Forge of Vulcan. For the same place had been ordered Rubens’ last paintings, the Andromeda, Hercules and Antaeus, the Rape and Peace of the Sabines. Here were also hung the same painter’s Scaevola, Achilles and Deidamia, Jacob and Esau, the Nymphs with the Cornucopia, the Satyr giving Drink to a Lion. With these foreign artists were associated two Spaniards : Ribera, represented by his Jael and Sisera, and Samson and Delilah above the windows ; and Velazquez in the modest place between these last. 45§ Velazquez. It was altogether a strange assembly — classical subjects by the hand of the first naturalists of the century. The Old Testament histories were placed on the same line with the classical scenes, and selected and handled from the same allegorico-romantic standpoint. Of Velazquez’ five pieces there still survive the Mars, the Venus with the Mirror, and the Mercury and Argus. His Apollo and Marsyas and Venus and Adonis have disappeared. Mars. This work has been especially appealed to as a proof of the assump- tion that Velazquez was not successful in his treatment of mythological subjects, a Spaniard giving as a reason that he was too good a Catholic to do justice to the Olympian deities. Richard Ford compares the figure of Mars to that of a common Galician porter ; a sculptor likens it to a broken-down circus athlete; a writer in the Quarterly Review (1872) calls it an indifferent study of a model; and even to Thore it suggested the Flemings of the decadence period. How Velazquez came to treat this theme may perhaps admit of explanation. In Rome he had to inspect several representations of Mars in order to make his selection of castings, and may have thus been inspired to commit the subject to canvas. It is a naked figure wearing a bright helmet, just as he had seen the god in the group with Venus in the Villa Medici. He had a casting taken of a similar marble statue in the Villa Borghese, now in the Louvre. He depicts the fierce war-god in a quiet attitude, as figured in an antique in the Villa Ludovosi, which has been attributed to the sculptor Scopas. The left leg is raised just as in that statue, which at that time was described as a gladiator ; a casting of it was included amongst those brought by Velazquez from Rome. The motive of repose prevails throughout the work. Mars has laid aside his armour and clothing, and is seated on his camp bed. Perhaps by this relaxed attitude better than by the strain of battle is conveyed the impression of the mighty framework of this figure and of its slum- bering strength. Even the right hand with the stick (the handle of a battle-axe ?) is concealed under the drapery, for who could look unmoved on the right hand of Mars ? This red drapery or mantle falls over both sides of the couch and is reflected in the shield — an allusion to Homer’s “ blood-stained destroyer of men.” Touching the forms, no one would expect to find Velazquez simply copying a statue. Even a Mars he could not have painted without first Mars. 459 discovering some living model answering to his conception of the Hellenic “ devourer of men.” Ares is described by the poet as of a rude type, and the ancients gave him a strongly developed muscular system, thick neck, short curly rough hair. Is Velazquez to be censured for having sought a model for the raging war-god amongst the hordes of the Tillys and Marradas ? It is a “bronze” figure (Iliad, v., 866) with a powerful MARS. but well-proportioned bony frame, the chest, as in the Farnese Hercules, seeming as if contracted between the tremendous upper arms. In the remarkable firmness of the fleshy parts it compares advantageously with Buonarroti’s too uniformly strained muscular display, and the flabbiness of the school of Rubens. Both motive and treatment of the forms would accordingly seem more 460 Velazquez. in accordance with the spirit of antique Art than is supposed. Anger still lingers on the features and in the portrait-like character which deviates from the idealism of the ancient effigies of the gods. “ Small eyes and large open nostrils ” were certainly among the attributes of Ares ; and we thus come at last to the mustachio, which it must be confessed produces the irresistible effect of a parody. Here again we recognize our master’s carelessness in weeding out disturbing details occurring in his models. The Greeks would probably have pronounced this figure a typical Ares of the barbarians. The helmet, brought well down on the forehead, shades the countenance, while its golden sheen contrasts with the lustreless eyes. It is difficult to say whether their glance is one of arrogance or menace. The darkening of the face by the helmet, the arm resting on the knee with its hand against the cheek, the right arm falling naturally, are all traits which also occur in Michael Angelo’s gloomy Pensieroso. Nowadays classical themes are in a sorry plight. In the seventeenth century — that age of pedantry when even in Madrid “ the lackey quoted Latin ” ( Quevedo ) — the ancient name itself served to recommend a work of Art ; at present it is more likely to draw a weary yawn from the observer. And when the artist endeavours to animate such subjects by a touch of Nature he is met with the sneers of unprofitable erudition. Anyhow Velazquez’ Antiques are no more parodies than are those of Rubens and the renaissance. The colour and tone also occur in other works of our master executed in this period. The crimson of the mantle with its whitish lights accords badly with the uniform carnations and the blue of the drapery covering the middle of the figure. This is probably what Beule meant when he spoke of “ monotony ” or “ fresco tone,” whereas Thore found in “ certain qualities of the tone ” the only praiseworthy feature of the picture. It would have seemed rather dull had the painter not introduced the dark, burnished steel objects with their golden sheen both above and below the naked figure. Mention occurs of the Mars for the first time in the inventory of the Torre de la Parada prepared at the death of Charles II., where it is stated to be hanging in the eighth chamber beside Rubens’ Marriage of Thetis and Peleus, and between the Esop and the Menippus, each of these works being valued at fifty doubloons. We can see no reason why it may not have been originally painted for this hunting-seat. Here the god of battles stood between the two peaceful “ philosophers,” Esop and Menippus, a picture of the fate of science and ietters in warlike times. In the Gijon Institute there is a carefully executed red-chalk drawing Mercury and Argus. 461 which is undoubtedly genuine, and which is a study for the Mars after the same model, although the attitude is somewhat different. The left leg supporting the elbow is thrown across the right leg, the eyes are closed, and the head, inclined much to one side, is buried in the palm of the hand. The wearied model had evidently fallen asleep, and the artist drew him in this posture, in which he was probably interested because showing how a sleeper sitting erect may keep his centre of gravity. Size of the painting, 179 x 0-95 metre; of the drawing, 23 x 9 '6 cm. Mercury and Argus. This picture was hung between the windows of the mirrored apartment as a pendant to the Apollo and Marsyas. They are mentioned together as “ originals by Velazquez ” in the inventory of 1666, where each is valued at a hundred doubloons (size i‘27 x 24.8 metres). Both were favourite subjects with artists, as classical scenes of murder, and as lending themselves to allegorical treatment. In his Pilgrim Lope introduces a distinguished prisoner in Barcelona, who consoles himself by covering the walls of his dungeon with “ hieroglyphics ” of his fate. Beside the Orpheus and Sisyphus we see the subject of this painting, 4 which according to Vespasiano Estroza's epigram symbolizes : Amor sutil al mas zeloso engana} In the first chamber of the royal summer residence there was an Apollo and Marsyas painted by Ribera in the year of his election to the Academy of St. Luke (1630). This atrocious subject had always been dear to poets and painters, even to men like Dante and Raphael, as an emblem of the intolerance shown by all true cultivators of Art towards mediocrity and dulness. In the Torre de la Parada there was a Rubens, a beautiful wooded evening landscape, in which the watcher Argus is seated slumbering and conveniently presenting his neck for the fatal blow from Mercury. This is a somewhat trite adaptation of a much used attitude. But even in such a slight decorative piece Velazquez shows himself a thinker, thoroughly studying the subject before taking brush in hand. He depicts a weird twilight scene, the evening sky overcast with heavy iron-grey clouds, through which are darted a few lingering sunset rays on the figures seen somewhat as silhouettes rising above the dark ground. Mercury, like a prairie Indian, creeps stealthily on all fours round his victim, the propped-up right hand grasping a naked sword, his head turned 1 “ Artful love deceives the most jealous.” 462 Velazquez. to the left as he just catches sight of Io’s guardian, the picture of a person suddenly overcome by irresistible sleep. It would almost seem as if Velazquez had before his eyes the statue of the dying gladiator in the Villa Ludovisi, a cast of which he had procured for the Alcazar. The figure of the “cattle-lifter” in his winged hat is delineated against the white glimmer of the evening sky, while farther back rises the horned head of the heifer, Io. The linear motive lies in the contrast of the two figures — one huddled up in sleep exposed above, the other crouching along the ground. Both faces are foreshortened and in the shade ; but the observer still detects the firm modelling of these powerful forms despite the indistinctness of the gloaming blended with the sharp reflected lights. Venus with the Mirror. The Toilette of Venus with attendant nymphs is a subject that already occurs on ancient monuments. There were statues in which the goddess was mirrored in the shield of Mars, and even real looking-glasses were employed in this connection. The Venus with the Mirror which was painted by Titian for Philip II., and which disappeared from Madrid during the last century, was hanging in the royal bedchamber in the year 1636, and was later removed to the gallery above the Emperor’s Garden. It required some courage on the part of Velazquez to challenge com- parison with the great Venetian by making choice of such a subject. Probably we have to thank the king that he for once ventured to depict a young and beautiful female form, which is regarded by all genuine artists as one of the most difficult and noblest tasks of pictorial Art. In order to avoid coincidences our master has as different a position as possible — figure outstretched on the couch and back view. Titian had adopted the latter in the Venus and Adonis, in order to form a pendant to the Danae ; Velazquez had in his lost Adonis perhaps shown the front view. The position may also have been suggested by the statue of the Hermaphrodite in the Villa Borghese, a casting of which he had procured in Rome. In this work he had an opportunity of studying the picturesque effect of the outlines and modulations of the back in a youthful figure. In Velazquez’ as in Titian’s work a Cupid holds forward an ebony-framed mirror, while Venus slightly raises her head which rests on the folded arm. Cupid takes it more easily, for he kneels and comfortably rests his crossed hands on the black frame. In the softness of his articulations he resembles the little ABC scholar in Correggio’s School of Love, which was long associated with our picture in the Alba Palace. To compensate for the somewhat lost profile of the goddess’ face, the Venus with the Mirror. 463 artist gives us a full view reflected in the mirror. Here we see a rather broad pleasant girl’s head enframed in thick, plainly dressed hair, somewhat liquidly painted, with grey shadows, which are projected from the dark wall opposite. Looking-glasses were at that time apparently seldom faultless, or perhaps the damsel did not wish to be recognized. Anyhow it must be confessed that this mirror does not quite realize the promise of the pretty outline with the brown hair tied in a knot on the head. Hence here the body is the main point. It is a Spanish type, and some have fancied they recognized the model in one of the figures in the Spinners. These are no powerful forms of Hellenic or Latin race “created for VENUS WITH THE MIRROR. sculpture ; ” even their Venetian namesakes are of far stronger build. But this is a delicate figure made for Andalusian dances. We see that she can utter the music of motion not with legs alone, but with the whole body. The upper line with its deep curve between prominent shoulder and hip at once suggests the slender waist, while the long slightly curved lower line with the intermediate vertebral dying out in the shapely little head and barely sketched outstretched foot, complete the contours of a figure which gives the impression of incomparable pliancy, lithe and graceful motion. It is pervaded by a breath of Eastern sensuousness as from Goethe’s Westostlicher Divan : Like fibrous rootlet glides her foot And wantons with the ground. 464 Velazquez. This delicate form deviates from the Venetian taste in its build, but not in the modelling in a full light broken only by a few narrow shadows with luminous reflected lights at the curvatures of the lower contour. It even excels the Venetians in the harmony between the tender touch and the firmness of the undulations in the inner surfaces. Only the tone is distinctly cooler, a bright crimson taking the place of the yellowish warm flesh tints. This tone is truer than the Venetian ; but the colours of the surroundings — the surcharged purple of the hanging, the light rose edge of the frame, the Cupid’s blue scarf — are not quite in keeping. No Venetian would have brought into proximity with the nude that black drapery, which hangs with a slight curve below the lower contour of the body. Its purpose should have been to heighten the carnations by contrast, and separate them from the white linen drapery. Hence Thore was scarcely justified in asserting that few other works by Velazquez can be compared with the Venus in the quality of the colour and harmonies. This critic, however, saw it in the Manchester Exhibition, where through prudery it was hung high up above the line. This painting would have given little pleasure to his then deceased teacher Pacheco, who recommended the use of female models only for face and hands, while for all the rest painters were to do the best they could with second-rate drawings and plastic models {El Arte , i., 354). Velazquez is in fact the only early Spanish painter who ventured to treat this risky subject, although since the time of Vargas the local artists were aware that their full powers could be shown only by their treatment of the nude, that “ depot of all bodily perfections,” for the study of which opportunities are scarcely to be found outside the Mythologies. Ribera once painted the Death of Adonis ; but his Venus completely clothed might just as well have served for a Magdalen. 1 The numerous representations of these subjects in the royal palaces were all foreign impor- tations. The introduction and exhibition of obscene pictures were punished by the Inquisition with excommunication, one thousand five hundred ducats fine, and one year’s banishment. Nevertheless Palomino reminds his readers that the nude is not in itself immodest ( deshonesto ), and that the latter should still be distinguished from the lewd ( Museo , ii., 95). At the same time he recommends Ovid and the Olympian Pantheon to painters, merely to enable them the better to understand the pictures in palaces, not for the sake of the few subjects these sources might supply them with. The proscription of such representations is rather to be attributed to 1 At the end of the seventeenth century this work was in Buen Retiro ; it is perhaps the painting now in the Corsini Gallery, Rome. The Venus with the Mirror. 465 Inquisitorial severity, and to the national hypocrisy thereby fostered, than to any assumed strictness of Christian morality. Those who have visited many Spanish churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will remember that occasionally even over the altars the claims of sensual motives have not altogether been disregarded. For since the days of the Phoenicians that other “queen of heaven,” spoken of by Jeremiah (vii. 18), has at all times held her ground in Spain, often worshipped even by the same devotees that kneel at the shrine of the Immaculate. 1 We also know what weight to attach to the diatribes of certain zealots, in whose eyes Alva and Philip II. themselves would be regarded as “publicans and sinners,” and who shed crocodile tears over Velazquez’ moral backsliding in having treated “subjects strictly speaking alien to his manly and Christian spirit.” Menendez Pelayo rightly stigmatizes such mock-modesty as the “decorum not of the Christian painter but of confraternities or congregations.” Our prurient censors, however, allow “ extenuating circumstances ” in the case of Velazquez, because he, at all events, abstained from the profane attempt to deify “ our wretched physical nature ” (yet in Genesis declared to be “very good”!), as did those arch-sinners, Giulio Romano, Titian, Rubens ! The back view of this very Venus is appealed to as a proof that our master had broken entirely from the shameful toying with the erotic Muse, by which the spirit of the Italian and Flemish artists had been enthralled. It is further pointed out that the “ chaste and severe Velazquez ” has so placed the mirror that the face alone of the goddess can be seen. He obeys in fact the request of Tartu ffe to cover “that bosom “ — que je 7ie saurais voir ; Par de paj'eils objets les dmcs sont blessees, El cela fait venir dc coupables pensees .” — (iii. 2 .) In the inventory for 1686 the Venus is entered under the name of Psyche and Cupid, but disappears after the fire of 1734. Perhaps it offended Bourbon delicacy. It turns up again, however, towards the middle of the eighteenth century in the Alba Palace, where it was seen by Ponz, who called it a celebrated work. Thence it passed to the collection of the Prince of Peace, and at the sale in 1808 was acquired, together with Titian’s Sleeping Nymph, by Mr. Wallis. Buchanan valued each of these works at four thousand guineas. 1 The reader will here be reminded of — those panels Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary On the outside, and on the inside Venus ! The Spanish Sludetit. — Translator. 30 466 Velazquez. On the advice of Sir Joshua Reynolds the Venus was purchased for £500 by Mr. Morritt, uncle of the present owner, to whom I am indebted for a photograph. In that country seat of Rokeby, over which Sir Walter Scott threw a romantic spell, the fallen goddess is anyhow safe from autos-da-fe such as the Io and the Danae were threatened with by “ the chaste and severe” Duke Louis of Chartres. Twice I had the pleasure of see- ing the picture in Rokeby Park, where I could satisfy myself on its perfect preservation, and the original clearness and freshness of the colours. Religious Paintings of the Last Period. The Coronation oj the Virgin } During these closing years of his career our Court painter again turned his attention to the representation of religious subjects. The third and last group of this class comprises two compositions presenting very peculiar features. One ot these, the Coronation of the Virgin, doubtless, was destined for the oratory in the residence of his new mistress, Queen Mariana, before whom he could thus present himself with a work by his own hand. This was a subject of half-symbolical, half-musical character, more in accordance with the spirit of mediaeval Art with its typical forms, sumptuously decorated church vestments, thrones and mandorlas, than with that of the seventeenth century realistic painting, which with a right sense of its own limitations, usually confined itself to such popular scenes as the Nativity, the Passion, or the Monkish Legends. The masters of motion, of ecstasy and chiaroscuro , were alone competent to achieve greatness after their manner even with a mystery of this nature, as witness the Correggio in the Tribune of San Giovanni. It is noteworthy that the Coronation was never handled by Murillo. Doubtless our master maturely weighed the conditions of the composition, nor did he attempt its execution without a thoroughly worked-out preliminary scheme. It could not escape him that in such a cloudland ceremony echoes of the nether world must produce a disturbing effect, consequently that the traditional treatment must be adopted, quickened with new life, less by studies of Nature than by nobility of form, elevated sentiment, dignity ( simplicity, proportion, solemn symphony of colour. He accordingly followed the same course as Raphael, who in the Trans- figuration abandoned the dramatic and picturesque manner of composition 1 This is the work entered in the old inventories under the name of La Trinidad (size 176 x 1 74 metre). The Coronation. 467 CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. unornamented material, and a wreath of tiny roses replaces the conventional gold crown. In this Madonna Velazquez has also evidently aimed at an embodiment of womanly dignity. The features are more refined than in those youthful paintings of the Shepherds and the Epiphany; the glance is proud, the gestures have an aristocratic elegance. We certainly miss the expression of blissful joy, of surprise and thankfulness ; but then she comports herself as would a Castilian lady under like circumstances. The senora’s of the cartoons, and fell back on the severe symmetry of Byzantine Art in the upper or mountain scene of that work. Here also the Queen of Heaven is throned right in the centre, Christ and the Eternal Father higher up and a little more in the background ; hence an unpicturesque and somewhat stagey exposition, in which the Madonna, as if to make sure of the popular worship, turns her back on the Heavenly Majesties. Nevertheless the artist has put aside all tfie mediaeval ecclesiastical paraphernalia. The raiment is of dark, 468 Velazquez. chief thought would be for the mien and bearing that best became her exalted station ; she would, as here, assume the proud air suitable to her new dignity. The downcast shading eyelashes doubtless recall charms of earlier times ; but they recall them only to make us sensible of their absence. When more closely inspected the features have somewhat the character of a portrait, but not of an Italian type, as has been asserted. The large eyebrows and eyes, the small obtuse nose, the pouting lips, the wavy black hair drawn far over the temples and enframing the oval face as in a crescent, still give the head somewhat the flavour of the professional model. But no Italian or Teuton would take this for a model suitable for a Madonna. She lacks that some- thing, that womanly touch awakening confidence, which adapted for the part even the home-bred and common types, for instance, of the fifteenth century. Compare, say, Titian's Assunta, and you see at once in what a marked degree the Italian differs from the Spanish artistic spirit, which even in heaven obtrudes its frosty ceremoniousness. I lere the expression of feeling is left entirely to the hands. The right hand touches the bosom, the left is extended straight out in expectation of the momentous event. With all its grace this dumb show to us would seem cold and melodramatic ; nevertheless, precisely such gestures of the hands are widespread amongst the Spanish people, and may often be noticed even in ordinary conversation. These hands are, moreover, perfectly beautiful, full of delightful modulations and delicate mobility. Just such hands are also met in the works of El Greco, that spirited portrayer of Spanish characteristics. And if we look around we shall recognize reminis- cences of the same artist in the grouping and draperies also, as well as in the colouring and light effects. The Christ recalls that of the San Placido Crucifixion ; here also the long dark locks fall down on the right side behind the ear, on the left over the face, forming a ground for the noble profile. The glance is solemnly earnest, and the whole figure with its forward stoop might be transferred just as it is to an audience scene before the high priest. In the Ancient of Days, as Jehovah is called in Daniel, Velazquez has left his realistic sense uncurbed. Here Pacheco required an earnest, hale old man, not betraying the infirmity of age by baldness (ii., 178); but our master has chosen a grey-haired model, the same that he with more fitness made use of for his Paul the Hermit — reddened eyelids, toothless mouth, no vivifying breath in the ossified features. But the master’s experiments are most surprising in the treatment of the draperies and colours. In representations of the Trinity, for instance The Coronation. 469 that of Ribera in the Prado (No. 990), it was usual to depict the First Person in a high priest’s robe, and Christ as risen from the dead, half naked and showing the wound in the side. But here both are clothed in long flowing tunics and cloaks, with too heavy and too numerous folds, and with somewhat overdone motives for the intended solemn effect. One suspects too much painstaking with the artificial draping of the lay-figure ; for such mantles were not worn in Spain, and the resemblance to the close-fitting capa should have been avoided, as profane. In these respects the Madonna’s draperies are better. These enormous piles of clothing have three distinct tones — the long tunics of the male figures violet, their mantles a purple crimson, the Madonna’s garments red and blue in accordance with traditional usage. The violet has been obtained by the process of blue glazing applied to the crimson. Such a treatment of this group is probably unique in modern painting. Doubtless Velazquez preferred these colours taken from the cold and dark side of the spectrum, in order to gain more solemn earnestness for the ground tone ; although religious symbolism would have chosen them rather for funeral obsequies than for a coronation feast. Moreover, owing to their proximity, the violet, blue, and purple-red produce the strongest colouristic dissonance, for violet and bide, violet and red are examples of the very worst contrasts. Even the juxtaposition of blue and red to which early Art was so partial, has here at least not been very successfully toned down. And in the absence of any neutral shadows to soften these disturbing effects, the eye seeks in vain some relief in a warm contrast of colours ; even the glaring white of the clouds tends only to make the effect all the more sombre, and to complete the impression of coldness. Yet a critic in the Quarterly Review (1872) calls the tone of this painting warmer than elsewhere, and Stirling- Maxwell “ brighter in hue ” than usual. 1 The Anchorites. Velazquez was more happy in probably his last religious piece — the visit paid to St. Paul the Hermit by the Abbot St. Anthony — the only work of his dealing with a monkish subject. This painting was intended for the altar of the oratory in the Hermitage of St. Anthony at the west 1 The principles of colour harmony were not unknown to the Spanish painters, and Palomino actually adduces red and violet as an example of bad juxtaposition — mala vezindad (ii., 135). In his chapter on the Trinity Pacheco recommends for the First Person an alb with white lights and lilac shadows, and mantle with brocade of some sombre colour, light blue tunic and light violet mantle ; for Christ a red mantle. 470 Velazquez. end of the Park at Buen Retiro, a Portuguese foundation erected in the year 1659. The picture was set in a rich gilt frame, at that time a somewhat rare distinction ; but this frame, which was slightly arched on top, was afterwards removed and the marks obliterated by the brush. A sketch mentioned in the catalogue of the Spanish collection in the Louvre (No. 286) was merely a reduced copy, and is now in England, having been acquired in 1879 by Mr. Beaumont of Piccadilly for £ 2 5. Grey-haired Anchorites of the wilderness were a favourite theme with artists of the later period, from Tintoretto and the younger Palma down to Guido Reni and Rubens. At that time these first fathers of ascetic spiritualism received a very realistic treatment by painters, whose produc- tions were bravura pieces in the portrayal of “ this muddy vesture of decay.’ Their powerful frames clothed with the wrinkly leather of age were suggestive at once of the mortification of the flesh and of sturdy manhood boldly confronting the terrors of the wilderness, the devil, and ascetic paroxysms. Collectors in every land vied with each other for the possession of those holy recluses, Jerome, Anthony, and Francis, who poured out of Ribera’s workshop in Naples. Similar models had been utilized by Velazquez, who, however, had in other respects struck out a way for himself. Against his usual practice he aimed at subordinating the patriarchs of monasticism to the environment ; for he considered that the scene itself should be allowed to speak at least as eloquently as figures and gestures. He thus gives full play to that nature in which was evolved the asceticism of the Essenes and Anchorites, to a landscape in whose midst the sublime extravagances of those heroic renouncers of the world seemed natural. Here is depicted the visit which the nonagenarian Anthony, inspired from above, paid to his hitherto unknown colleague Paul, now in his hundred and thirteenth year. “ In the glorious poverty of this exist- ence it was revealed to him where another dwelt more perfect than he. Since the time of the persecution of Diocletian Paul of Thebes had lived in a grotto, drawing nourishment, shade, and clothing from a palm tree. Ninety years had elapsed and he had passed from the memory of man. . . . Anthony came only at his death.” 1 Both are seated on stone blocks before the cave near the spring, and their communion of spirit has just been interrupted by the appearance of the raven bringing the bread which for sixty years he had daily laid at the feet of the saint. This time there were two loaves, and the legend 1 K. Hase, History of the Church , p. 74. The Anchorites. 471 was doubtless inspired by the raven of Elias. In the withered figure we recognize his greater age and the savagery of his solitary life. St. Anthony, as also shown by his habit, has retained more of human culture, and is correspondingly less favoured by heaven. 1 In Paul’s wearily raised arms and clasped hands, as well as in his glittering eyes we read both thankfulness and hunger; but his visitor extends his arms in amazement. Here Velazquez still remains the master of that apposite gesture-language, which never says too little or too much. Compared with him Ribera’s violent though otherwise picturesque attitudes in the spirit of Michael Angelo seem conventional. Only in the costume our master is not correct. Paul, who here appears in a white sleeveless habit and girdle, really wore a garb of palm leaves, which was known even to Don Quixote (ii., 24). Anthony, here in a brown robe and black mantle, had a sheepskin shirt and a dark cowl of some coarse fabric. After the fashion of mediaeval Art— -and here again we see how little of the pedant was in Velazquez — he has introduced in the middle distance and the background Anthony on his way to the holy grotto, and the end of this strange meeting. On his trackless journey the abbot meets half- human creatures of the wilderness, whom blind heathendom had worshipped as demi-gods. First a centaur, of whom he asks the way ; then a strange being with goat's feet, hawk’s nose and horns, who presents himself before the holy man as a faun, and begs him to send missionaries to his tribe. Farther on we see the wanderer standing before the grated door of the cave, imploring permission to enter. Yielding at last to his tears, Paul comes out, and recognizes the man whom the Lord had promised to send him before his death, which is now at hand. Then he requests Anthony to fetch the cloak of the holy Athanasius from within the cave. On reappearing with this garment Anthony, finding that he has fallen asleep in a kneeling attitude, carries him out and wraps the body in the mantle. While he is singing the customary hymns and psalms, the devout lions come forward who have dug the grave, receiving in recompense the blessing of the holy recluse. 3 This legend of the patriarchs of monasticism, as of their prototypes 1 Paul is the type of the true “ Anachoret,” or hermit, who dwells entirely apart ; Anthony of the “ Cenobite,” or monk, who lives in community. The distinction pre- vailed from the earliest times of Eastern monasticism. — Translator. 2 A Spaniard whom I met before the picture in the gloomy winter of 1872-3 thought he saw in it a forecast of the future — the last days of Spain, in which the last Carlist and last Republican are reconciled in death. Fortunately he appears to have taken too black a view of the then pending issue. 472 Velazquez. the prophets, has at all times afforded opportunity for the treatment of landscapes. Even the monks themselves in selecting the sites for their monasteries attached great importance to the romantic features of the district. On this point at least of cultured taste they were some ten hundred years in advance of the children of this world. But suitable studies for this class of scenery cannot be collected under every clime. In St. Peter’s at Ghent we see the same visit treated in the Flemish taste. Here we have a leafy woodland, towers, a castle in the rear, a river with a smiling plain, winding up with a much- pinnacled city, so that one asks what need for the raven to trouble him- self about the bread ? In Mirou’s work also (Hermitage, No. 529) all manner of dainties are spread out on the grass, though the line is drawn at meat. Even wooded scenes like those of a Ruisdael would not suit here, because they lack the vast horizon and the poetry of the solitude. The treeless upland valleys of the south with their grand savage outlines, where man and his culture have reverted to a state of Nature, can alone supply the proper tune for these legends of the pioneers of monasticism. A more sublime epopee of landscape painting has scarcely been com- posed than the History of Elias and Elisha, executed by Gaspard Dughet for the Church of San Martino ai Monti in Rome. From this scenery, taken from the Sabine Hills, a spirit is wafted towards us, the language of which was understood by those visionaries. Then the bandages fell from their eyes, they inhaled the breath of prophecy and went forth unto the kings and peoples. 1 Over these savage glens, lofty summits and silent plains now desolated by malaria, there broods a hallowed solemnity in which Nature has again assumed her divine aspect without needing that manifold world of supernatural beings, whose extinction was so eloquently bemoaned by Schiller. Still wilder, still more akin to the wastes of the Thebais, are the Despoblados of Castile and Estremadura. Here lies a narrow dale, changed to an oasis by a brooklet, and shut off from the outer world by the over- 1 When they first reached Rome on their conquering westward march (341) “the strange and savage appearance of these Egyptians excited horror and contempt, andt at length, applause and zealous imitation. The senators, and more especially the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into religious houses ; and the narrow institution of six vestals was eclipsed by the frequent monasteries which were seated on the ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the Roman Forum” ( Gibbon , xxxvii.). — Translator. The Anchorites, 473 hanging sierra. This verdant dale with the brushwood and aromatic herbs of its slopes, opens on a secluded gorge sheltered by the encircling lime- stone cliffs, like a defile leading from the sunny outer world to the inaccessible stronghold of self-abnegation, whence the only outlet lies beyond the grave. Three-fourths of the vista is shut off by the huge bluff standing out in front like some cyclopic wall. SS. PAUL AND ANTHONY. The hermit’s cave lies at the foot of this bluff, the rocky surface of which has been clothed with a green mantle by the trickling moisture. Indifferent to the Eastern character of the scene the painter, still true to his love of reality, aimed only at utilizing the motives of a district with which he was personally acquainted. In the limestone cliffs stretching 474 Velazquez. for miles along the valley, through which he must often have ridden on his way from the Balsain forests to Segovia, there often occur soft sandy and clayey strata, which the water has by erosion carved into caverns. These excavations skirt the flowery valley of the Eresma streamlet into which flows the Clamores brook. It was to such a retreat that San Fruto, patron of Segovia, withdrew after distributing all his effects to the poor ; here he ended his days and here the Mozarabic Christians are said to have taken refuge in the Moorish times. The palm, whose foliage supplied Paul with clothing, and which should here in fact afford shade to both recluses, has been relegated to the upper left corner of the cliff as an emblem. Its place is taken by a slender, thinly clothed alder-tree entwined by creepers and encircled by those bramble bushes that hedge all the tracks throughout North Spain. Above, light clouds flit across the canopy of heaven, whence the sun darts its fiery rays, scorching grass and brain alike. It is a typical sky of the wilderness, a sky that plants in the minds of mortals an image of that Infinite which annihilates the Finite. This overwhelming firmament is a leading feature of the picture. The painting is executed with ineffable charm. Thus a hand alone can paint that has wielded the brush for some forty years. It is the most thinly painted of all our master’s works, completely finished at the first dash, and then not touched again. All the effects are produced by the least expenditure of power and pigment. A few tints, chiefly blue and brown, are sparingly applied to a yellowish white ground, and by these economic means results are obtained which are now scarcely secured by endless glazing or the most liberal use of the spatula. But the most remark- able feature in this insubstantiality is the perfect distinctness of the forms, from the human figures down to the bramble-bushes. Behind the colours, which seem blown on to the canvas, the drawing quivers as if seen in the distance through a thin gauze veil. The Journey to the Pyrenees. Velazquez’ last performance was one connected with the office, not of Court painter, but of palace marshal. The gathering of the Spanish and French Courts on the islet in the frontier river Bidasoa after the conclusion of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, the meeting of Philip, whose star was then setting, with the young Louis XIV., from whom the monarchy was destined to suffer so many woes, and with that sister Ann whom he had not seen for five-and-forty years, — all this has been admirably described by French writers, 475 The Journey to the Pyrenees. as well as depicted by French painters. But on the Spanish side we have nothing but one of those books of travel, whose value is chiefly geographical. In the French accounts w T e see and hear as if present what takes place in the intimate councils of the most exalted persons ; in the Spanish report we move entirely within the range of vision of a palace quarter-master. But although Spain possessed no writers of memoirs, a painter was nevertheless present, in whom posterity places more trust than in Charles le Brun. It does not appear, however, to have occurred to Philip that here was an occasion on which a word from his lips would have sufficed to produce a monument of historical painting. Velazquez had himself to blame, if instead of collecting sketches for such a work, he had to occupy himself with the duties of his office as travelling quarter-master, pushing ahead with his underlings, preparing the royal quarters, and at last appearing before their Majesties and the Court grandees in the gold chain and the Red Cross of Santiago. The departure from Madrid had been arranged for April 15, 1660; but Velazquez started some days before, accompanied by three ayudas de furriera (quarter-masters), his son-in-law Mazo, Damian Goetens and Joseph de Villareal. Those who can picture to themselves a royal journey of this "sort, with such a following as the occasion demanded, and with such communications as then existed, will naturally feel anxious for our aposentador, even though two other high functionaries had been charged with the heavy work of putting the highways in order. Although the king himself wished to travel with a minimum of impedimenta and of attendants, even amongst those had to be included four physicians, four surgeons, two sangrados (“blood-letters”), the Court barber and his three assistants ; but then came the nobles with their indispensable retainers, Haro with a household of no less than two hundred persons, the carriages with the royal presents and the liveries that had to be daily renewed. The van of the convoy had reached the gates ot Alcala, as the rear was passing through the Alcala gate of the capital. Between Madrid and San Sebastian twenty-one stations were arranged for the royal cortege , which at first followed the line of the present Saragossa railway as far as Jadraque, thence crossing the Sierra and reaching the left bank of the Douro at Berlanga. After accompanying this river as far as Aranda, the moving column struck due north for Burgos, whence it trended north-east, advancing by slow stages through the Cantabrian highlands down to the coast at San Sebastian near the French frontier. On a level road some 1 Viage del Rey N S. D. Filipe Quarto a la Frontera de Francia, by D. Leonardo Castillo (Madrid : 1667). 476 Velazquez. six Spanish miles were got over in a day’s march, but the progress was much slower across the rugged mountains of Alava and Guipuzcoa. There was no lack of incidents along the route. In their long desolate ancestral halls the aged king had an opportunity of learning something of the splendour of former powerful vassals ; at Osma and elsewhere he beheld some of those primeval Iberian towns now in a state of utter decay ; in these districts he might well have been touched by the still undiminished store of easily kindled loyalty slumbering in the breasts of his sorely tried Castilians ; he could here also indulge in unprofitable speculations on the former flourishing commercial marts which had fallen into hopeless decadence under his glorious administration. He had, however, little time for these meditations ; for his entrance into every town was hailed with rejoicings, balls and masquerades, bull- harrying and fireworks. In Borgo de Osma “ the peasants displayed their great devotion in dancings without delicacy and with little Art.” In Guipuzcoa the Basques of both sexes performed their national sword-dance, nobles and people intermingling to the din of fife and timbrel, ” men and women alternately in rings and rows.” No wayside inns were to be had in Old or New Castile, but the spacious seats of the nobility served as substitutes. Nowhere was more accommodation found than in the prodigious palace of the cardinal at Alcala, enlarged by Alonso de Fonseca. Here the eye was entranced by Alonso de Covarrubias’ plateresque courts and the fantastic polychrome splendour of the council chamber, the richest erection of the Gotho-Arabian ornamentation. Then the scene soon changed in Guadalajara to the Infantado Palace built by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1461), with its apartments painted by Romolo Cincinnato with antique grotesques in the bright manner of the loggia. A rare spectacle was presented by the illuminations in the park of the Duke of Frias’ palace at Berlanga, which was amphitheatrically disposed in three terraces with watch-towers, fountains and statues. This palace, as well as that of the Lerma family more recently built in the town of Lerma, was burnt by the French during the Peninsular wars. The latter, erected by the Cardinal de Lerma, had been decorated in the Herrera style by Francisco de Mora in 1614; the bronze statue of Archbishop Sandoval by Pompeo Leoni still stands in the local church. In Burgos, reached on April 24, the painful contrast was patent to all between the former splendour and present misery of the ancient city, whose ruin had been completed by the renewal of the Dutch war. A deeply interesting sight awaited our master in the Convent of Sta. Clara at Bribiesca founded in 1523. Here was the famous retablo towering 477 The Journey to the Pyrenees. up to the roof and crowded with unpainted statues in walnut, in which the observer admired “ the skill and beauty of the work in the plain material, where Art scorned gold and colour.” This work, begun by Diego Guillen, in 1523, was finished by Pedro Lopez de Gamiz, of Miranda. Then the caravan leaving the solitudes of the old Castilian table-land, reached the Basque territory through the narrow defile of Pancorbo. Henceforth royalty had to make itself comfortable in the humbler homes of the poor but proud hidalgos of Alava and Guipuzcoa, at last reaching San Sebastian on May 11. This place, at that time a formidable stronghold, was honoured with a residence of three weeks, while Velazquez was putting to rights the old palace of the Navarrese kings at Fontarabia. For Philip the most exciting spectacle was perhaps the naval demon- stration in the port of Pasages, where he was rowed about in a grand State barge, amid the thunder of artillery and the acclamations of the crowds assembled on the beach. The object of all this jubilation was an aged man enfeebled by ailments and broken in spirit by all manner of calamities — a man who could look back on the past only with feelings of sorrow and bitterness. And he was now about to part with his eldest daughter, the only pledge left him by the bride of his youth. She had herself "in tears left those walls where she had been born,” and was now going to a land to which she remained alien to the last, and to a husband who never loved her — a pledge of peace, as was supposed, but in reality the cause of future civil strife and of the dismemberment of the monarchy. In San Sebastian Velazquez, accompanied by Baron de Watteville, governor of the fortress, went in a barge to the Isle of Pheasants in order to inspect the Conference House, which had been erected there a few months previously. At that time this islet in the estuary of the frontier river was five hundred feet long b}? sixty wide. In the ephemeral insular palace the chief apartment was the central chamber common to both nations, fifty-six feet long, twenty-eight wide, and twenty-two high. Disposed round it were an equal number of private rooms for the French and Spaniards, comprising for each a long gallery approached by bridges of boats, three saloons, and a narrow passage leading to a cabinet^all decorated with costly tapestries. A selection of the best Flemish hangings preserved in the Alcazar had been brought from Madrid, the subjects of which were exclusively Biblical, moral and mythological scenes. All are still extant, and are mostly after cartoons by Flemish artists of the sixteenth century affected by Italian influences. On June 7 the Infanta was given away. " Velazquez,” says Palomino, Velazquez. 478 “ assisted at all the functions.” He was entrusted with the royal bride- groom’s presents to his father-in-law — a fleece of diamonds and a gold watch, also embellished with diamonds, to be brought to Philip in the palace at Fontarabia. “Don Diego Velazquez,” we read, “was not the last who on that day displayed his loyal affection in the elegance, the nobility and pomp of his personal attire. His art and his courtly refinement were shown in the arrangement of the numerous diamonds and gems ; in the colour of the materials also he appeared more to advantage than others, for he naturally excelled in this knowledge, and herein always gave proof of rare taste. His costume was trimmed all over with Milanese silver braiding according to the style of that period, which retained the golilla even with coloured clothes and on journeys ; on the cloak was the Red Cross of the Order ; a very fine short gala sword, silver scabbard and chape with excellent reliefs of Italian workmanship. From the heavy gold neck- chain hung the little shield studded with many diamonds with the Santiago habit in enamel ; all the other adjuncts corresponded with the costly splendid costume.” Thus writes Palomino in a high key of this triumph enjoyed by the pictorial Art in the person of his official predecessor. On June 8 the return journey began at once, and with it fresh troubles for our palace marshal. In Burgos the former route was aban- doned for the road through Palencia to Valladolid, where Philip tarried a few days in the palace where he had first seen the light. Again followed festivities kept up for three days, till one wonders how, after such affecting experiences, the Court could endure the mere din of these endless repetitions of the old comedy. The End. But on June 26 all were at last back in Madrid. “On entering his home Velazquez was received by his family, wife and friends with more consternation than joy, for the report of his death had spread through the capital, so that they could not trust their eyes ; this was, as it seemed, a foreboding of the short time that was still allotted to him in this life.” The work imposed upon him during those seventy-two days would have better suited some veteran captain inured to the hardships of the Flemish campaigns. As Murillo met his fate in Cadiz and Diirer caught his fatal ague in the Scheld estuary, Velazquez also probably The End. 479 brought from the seaboard the germs of the malady by which he was prematurely carried off. On the last day of July, after having been in attendance throughout the whole morning on his Majesty, he felt feverish, and hastened through the passage to his dwelling. A malignant intermittent fever broke out, which the physicians at once saw would be fatal. “ He felt a great pressure and spasms in stomach and heart ; he was visited by Doctor Vicencio Moles, Court physician, and the king, anxious for his life, also sent his own private physicians, Miguel de Alva and Pedro de Chavarri. They recognized the danger and declared it to be the first symptoms of terciana sincopal minuta sutil, that is a subtle tertian fever accompanied by fainting, a highly dangerous affection owing to' the prostration of the vital functions ; his raging thirst was an indication of the evident danger. At the request of the king he was also visited by Don Alonso Perez de Guzman el Bueno, Archbishop of Tyre and Patriarch of both Indies, who preached him a long sermon for his spiritual consolation. And on Friday August 6, in the year 1660, on the Feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration, after receiving the last Sacraments and giving full testatory powers to his trusted friend Don Gaspar de Fuensalida, in the sixty-first year of his life, about two o’clock in the afternoon, he resigned his soul to Him who had created it fcrr such a wonder of the world, leaving all in great grief and not least His Majesty who when his life was in suspense gave all to understand how much he loved and prized him. “They wrapped the body in the modest shroud, and then clothed it as in life, according to the custom of the knightly orders, with the mantle worn at chapters and the red badge on his breast; hat, sword, boots and spurs ; and thus he lay that night on his deathbed in a chamber draped in black ; by his side some lights with wax candles and other tapers on the altar, where stood a crucifix, till Saturday. Then they placed the corpse in the coffin, which was garnished with black velvet and gold nails and galloons, and above it a cross similarly dressed ; with gilt clamps and two keys ; till the night arrived — the darkness clothing all in mourning, when they bore him to his last resting-place in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist. There he was received by His Majesty’s chamberlains who placed him on the catafalque which had been erected in the middle of the choir ; on either side were twelve silver candlesticks and many tapers. The obsequies were celebrated with great solemnity in the presence of many nobles and chamberlains. Then they removed the coffin and consigned it to Don Joseph de Salinas, Knight of Calatrava, and other knights, who bore it on their shoulders to the grave and burial- 480 Velazquez. place of Don Gaspar de Fuensalida, who in proof of his affection had given him this to be his resting-place.” Philip was deeply affected by the unexpected death of his favourite Court painter. When the Junta de obras y bosques decided on August 15 that the stipend of one thousand ducats, which had now lapsed, should not be again granted, but should revert to the Junta, the king felt himself unable to make up his mind, and with a trembling hand wrote on the margin : Quedo adbatido (“ I am overcome ”). This document I have seen in the archives of Simancas. Thus it seems probable that, besides the loss of much valuable time, his much envied official position was also the cause of Velazquez’ somewhat premature death. The greater part of his life was spent in the service of the Court, sacrificed to the whims of his sovereign. No other such career was scarcely ever more circumscribed by courtly, ceremonious and traditional routine. The range of his subjects, and partly even the very manner of treatment, were limited by traditional usage. Such work may be compared to a royal pleasure-ground of the period. Here everything is laid down on archi- tectural and geometrical lines, measure and outlines being prescribed to plant life itself. Here we find the usual mythological groups with their allegorical bearings, the grotesque figures of dwarfs, the statue of some royal person ; nor do we miss the hermitage and shrines ; and we are favoured with a glimpse through a large window of inaccessible apartments, where majesty in the intimacy of the family circle may occasionally be seen by the lieges. On a copper-plate such a garden assumes a somewhat stiff and lifeless aspect. But when at the foot of the sierra at Balsain a vision is unfolded of the park of San Ildefonso, as if conjured up by Aladdin's lamp, prejudice must needs give way to admiration. For the sources and revelation of all life — light, water, colour — are here in full measure. The gorgeous flowers, the basins clear as crystal, the splashing waterfalls, the mysterious vistas and unexpected panoramas, everything weaves a spell around us as if we had come upon a sanctuary of vanished gods in the midst of the surrounding wilderness. A weird life of unearthly origin seems as if let down amid the life of Nature, which here pervades the rigid forms prescribed by Art. And when we are again plunged in the stream of daily existence, a deep trace of those fleeting visions lingers long in the memory. Velazquez’ Successors. Carreno . — As he had no forerunner or prototype, so our master had no successor — except indeed to his offices and titles. Still even to these the Carreno ; Coello. 481 changelessness of the Court atmosphere often gives a semblance of similarity. This is seen in Juan Carreno de Miranda (born 1614, ob. 1685), Court painter and assessor to the office of palace marshal, and, had he sought the honour, also Knight of Santiago. But he declined, needing no badge beyond that of servant to his Majesty. And to friends urging he should accept it for the honour of the Art he replied : “ Painting stands in no need of honours from anyone ; she can afford to confer honour on the whole world.” His historical pieces point more to Flemish and Italian influences, his portraits more to Van Dyck, than to his predecessor in office. But with him we still remain in the same family circle, in the same studio, in the same apartments of the Alcazar, where hang the same oil-paintings and mirrors that Velazquez installed. His subjects also assume the same attitudes, and grasp the identical armchairs. So powerful is the genius of the place, that even in the palace itself Juan’s portraits were often taken for works by Velazquez. Nevertheless this high-born Asturian really possessed something of his precursor’s veracity ; nor is the picture of the Court drawn in flattering colours by this “ worthy chronicler.” His subjects are partly the same as those of Velazquez, partly fresh arrivals, but no fresh life; all is duller, more wearisome, blighted and darkened, as if by a shadow of Orcus. The bright Mariana has become a gloomy widow in Convent garb. The second Juan of Austria, fruit of a voluptuary’s velleities, a man who it was hoped would prove a double of his great namesake, rose to the position of a statesman and captain only to leave to contemporaries and prosperity the memory of a tremendous fiasco. Our Court buffoon Bazan no longer plays the part of a bold bull- baiter, or of a weather-beaten captain ; but appears as a dejected suppliant. Even the generation of dwarfs, when compared with those five types left us by Velazquez, seems in the puny Misso, 1 with his parrots and lapdogs, still further degraded to the level of mere puppets. But amid these tiresome and played-out nonentities there appears a fresh lively face and defiant figure in Oriental costume, Peter Ivanovich Potemkin, who visited Madrid in 1682. Coello . — Carreno was succeeded in 1684 by Claudio Coello. This last national Court painter to the Habsburg dynasty was, like the first (Sanchez Coello) of Portuguese stock. He died of grief after the arrival of the Italian, Luca Giordano. 1 Formerly in Lord Ashburton’s country seat,- The Grove, now in the possession of Lady Louisa Ashburton, London. 31 482 Velazquez. Claudio Coello was a master of colour, and still more of light effects of the most diverse kinds. The Holy Conversation with St. Louis (Prado, No. 702) is referred to as a result of his studies in the royal palaces. Here we have nothing of the exhaustion or gloom of death ; it is a picture such as Rubens’ Virgin in the Rose-bush, full of festive movement, radiant sunshine, azure blue, and a delicious gloaming. Of a different character is the work which of all others here claims special attention. It is the last great product of the old Spanish school, which, like the dynasty itself, found its grave in the Escorial. In it the traditions and spirit of Velazquez once more blaze forth. The king had presented a retablo of precious stones to the altar in the sacristy of San Lorenzo for the consecrated wafer which had been outraged during the religious wars in the Low Countries, and which since 1592 had been preserved in a reliquary of that church ; the work in question w'as to serve as a screen for that retablo. The artist has chosen the moment when the Prior de los Santos raises the monstrance in the act of blessing the king, who has advanced at the head of a procession from the Court and is now kneeling before the altar. Like the Meninas, this picture of the sacred Host is also a kind of instantaneous photograph. It also consists exclusively of well-executed portraits, of which iio less than fifty have been reckoned. A correct perspective picture is given of the very place for which the work was intended, and where it is still to be seen, with a view through the open door. The figures are grouped and disposed behind each other as in the Meninas ; only here prevails the peculiar light of an interior illumined by some twenty tapers, and into which also streams the daylight reflected by sumptuous sacerdotal robes. The severe restrictions imposed by the representation of such a religious and royal ceremony, as well as the complete abstention from his customary forms of composition, have by no means hampered the artist. The composition, with which he was occupied for three years, is on such a vast scale that his familiar hand is scarcely recognized in this work. But, as in that masterpiece by Velazquez, the effect is as if we were peering through a telescope into past ages. But what a time was this when these priests and periwigged courtiers gathered round the last decrepit sovereign of the old dynasty ! The monarchy had fallen to a depth of impotence which, compared with its position even a century before, is unparalleled in recent history. Fallen from her high estate, that arrogant nation, formerly the terror of Europe, had now become the scorn of the peoples. At one time her mere name was the signal of victory ; but where now were her great captains, her imperious COELLO. 483 churchmen, her conquistador es, her poets ? The empire " on which the sun never set ” was itself hastening to its decline. At the head of the decaying fabric stood the form here kneeling in Coello’s painting, the form whose feeble thread of life alone kept the realm still together. Here he still kneels in the same place as in the year 1684, some three lustres before he was lowered into the pantheon of his ancestors. Like his father, he also had visited the place in his lifetime, in order to behold the mouldering company which he was soon to join. Two hundred years have passed, but this State has not again recovered from her impotency. New disturbing elements have alone permeated the body politic. The convents and many too of the churches, for which native and foreign artists sculptured, carved and painted, they have been closed, desecrated, demolished, their contents scattered to all the winds. But no clear trace has yet been detected of a new life springing up from those ruins. Assuredly it is a proof of the potency of Art that she at least has been able to lend attraction even to monuments of such times as have here been described ; nay, even made it possible to spend long years of research in their midst. But in her steadfastly glows a light, like a ray which, from some already extinct sun, penetrates to our eye through the night of inter- stellar space. She alone it is that prevents humanity from consigning such generations and times to lasting oblivion. index. INDEX. [The consultation of this Index will he facilitated by attention to the following points :— 1. All the salie?it features of Velazquez' Life and Art with his chief works broadly classified, critiques, etc., will be found under the entry Velazquez. 2. The titles of all his known works, extant or extinct, and of such works attributed to him as are mentioned in the text, are entered in their place in italics, atid where desirable under their alternate designations; thus: “ The Aleninas ” and “ The Maids of Honour!' No other entries are italicized. 3. Proper names are given, as a rule, U 7 ider the patronymic ; thus: Herrera, Francisco. But irritating cross references are avoided to the utmost ; hence all London collections containing works by Velazquez are entered twice — in tlicir alphabetical order and under London. For the same reason important names with alternative spellings are given under both, in these cases the cross reference being made to the form adopted in the text; thus: Rivera, see Ribera; Alva, see Alba. 4. To keep the text clear of cumbrous no?nenclaturc redundant names are often suppressed. In these cases the Index will always show the person meant. Thus, the Ostade mentioned at p. 456 is indexed as Ostade, Adrian van ; Scharf, p. 298, as Scharf, George; and so on.~\ Aa, rivulet, 206. Abercorn, Duke of, 325. Abiles, 87. Academy of Madrid, 42. Academy of St. Luke, 179, 426. Academy, Royal, Exhibition of 1888, 325. Acquaviva, Cardinal, 353. Acqui, 195. Adam, Claude, 347. Admiral Adrian Pulido, 295-8. Adrian Pulido, 296. Aeken, Jerome van, 102. iEdes Walpolianae, 360. Aerschot, Duke of, 376. Aertsen, Peter, 68. .Esthetics of the Ugly, 455. Aguado Gallery, 267. Aguas, Martin de, buffoon, 435. Aguila, Conde de, 81. Ajarafe, 20. Alarcon, Juan Ruiz de, 17, 91. Alava, 476. Alba, Duchess of, 333. Alba, Duke of, 151, 200. Alba Palace, 407, 462, 465. Albano, Francesco, 159. Albert, Archduke, 101. Albert, son of Rubens, 132. Albert, Archduke, 222. Alberti, G. B. degli, 30. Albornoz, Cardinal, 158. Alcacer Quibir, 102. Alcala, Bernardine Nunnery, 123. Alcala, city, 280. Alcala de Guadaira Hospital, 44. Alcala Fernando, Duke of, 43, 45. Alcantara, Order of, 120, 318. Alcazar, Balthasar del, 22. Alcazar, Luis del, 85, 244. Alcazar, Melchor del, 85. Alcazar Palace, Madrid, 96, 457. Aldobrandini, Olimpia, 347. 488 Index. Aleman, Jorge F., 28. Aleman, Mateo, 20, 68. Aleman, Pedro F., 26. Alexander VI., 285. Alexander VII., 342. Alfarache, Guzman de, 68. Alfaro, J nan de, 9. Alfonso VI., 60. Alfonso X., the Wise, 25. Algardi, Alessandro, 348, 349. Alhambra, 4, 34. Alicante, 340. Aljaferia (Saragossa), 330. Allori, Cristofano, 122. Alsace-Lorraine Exhibition, 31 1. Altabas (Saragossa), 329. Altamira Family, 117. Altamira Gallery, 117, 319. Alton Towers, 112. Alumbrados, 21. Alva. See Alba. Ambras Palace, 412. Amerighi, M. See Caravaggio. Amettler, Bias, 70. Amcyden, Diary of, 288, 346, 354, 399. Anchorites , The, 469-74. Ana de la Vega, 424. Andreu, Bernardo, 450. Andres de Andrade, 297. Angelico, Fra, 126. Angely, d’, buffoon, 434. Anna, wife of Louis XIII., 175, 380, 403, 474- Anne Oueen of England, 278. Annibali Domenico, 252. Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick, 341. Anthony, St., Abbot, 469. Antiques, The, 362. Antonio de Castilla, 41 1. Antonio, Nicholas, 49. Antonio, Don, dwarf, 436. Antonio the Englishman, dwarf, 447. Antwerp, 27, 91, 134, 200. Apelles, 89, 107, 254. Apollo and Mary sas, 461. Aposentador del Rey, 373. Apsley House, 70, 72, 278, 300, 332, 359, 360, 426. Arab Art, 4. Aragonese State, 328. Aranjuez, 96, 197, 198, 21 1, 218. Arbasia, Cesar de, 33. Arch of Titus, 167 Arcos, Duke of, 296, 399. Aretino, Pietro, 252, 434. Arezzo, 122, 443. Argenville, d', 9, 348. Argote de Molina, 219. Arguijo, Juan de, 21. Arias, Antonio, 365. Ariosto, 452. Aristotle, 102, 127. Arnao de Flandes, 32. Arnao de Vergara, 32. Arphe y Villafane, 30. Arpino, Cavaliere d', 161, 377. Art Circles in Madrid, 93. Art Circles in Rome, 1 58, 347. Artillero, The, 438. Arundel, Thomas Earl, 342. Asensio, Francisco, 12, 44, 49. Ashburton, Lady Louisa, 481. 1 Ashburton, Lord, 220, 481. Asis, Don Fr. de, 75, 401. I Assunta, Titian's, 2. Astorga, 379. Atanasio, Fray, 229. Attila, 102. Atti, Flavio, 151. Augsburg Gallery, 446. Aulnoy, Madame d’, 276. Ayala, Lopez de, 415. Ayala, Pictor Christianus, 243. Azara, Cavaliere d’, 361. Bacchus, The, 139-46. Baccio del Bianco, 193. ! Baglioni, envoy, 175. Baillie, Col. Hugh, 117, 326, 400. | Bala 119011, Baron, 201. I Balbi, Fr. M., 315. Balbi Palace, 203, 315. Balsain, 96, 210, 480. Balthasar Carlos, Prince, 31 1. Balthasar Carlos, Equestrian Portrait oj , 3i i-3- Bandinelli, 126. Bankes, Walter R„ 289, 418. Barajas, town, 271. Baratta, Francesco, 347. Barbaro, Pater, 343. Barbarossa. See Pernia. Barberini, Card. Franc., 156, 345. Barberini, Fall of, 288. Barbola, Mari, dwarf, 416. 489 Index. Barcelona, city, 27, 151, 176, 309. Barefoot Nuns, Madrid, 98. Baring, Thomas, 220, 308. Barrameda, San Lucar de, 38. Barriere, Dominique, 346. Bartolotti, 193. Basadonna, 104, 444. Bass, Major Edward, 380. Bassano, 54, 184. Bath House, 220, 413. Bathoe, 120. Bazan, Alvar de, 22, 151. Bazan, buffoon, 481. Beaumont, Mr., 470. Beaumont, Sir George, 259. Becerra, Gaspar, 30. Beck, Daniel, 341. Bedford, Duke of, 298. Beer, Maria E. de, 55. Bellori, G. P., 160, 364. Belvedere Gallery, 8, 208, 326. Benavente, Count of, 121,435. Benavente, Antonio Alonso, 298. Benavides, Luis de, 152. Berchem, Nic., 81. Berettini Pietro, 348, 360. Bergh, Count van den, 204. Berlanga, town, 475, 476. Berlin Gallery, 177, 269. Berlin Cabinet of Engravings, 319. Bermudez, Cean, 9, 35, 38, 126, 246, 306, 313. Bernardo Andreu, 450. Bernini, Lorenzo, 157, 280, 348, 349. Berruguete, Alonso, 30, 31, 34, 35, 149. Beukelaer, J., 68. Beule, Ch., 2, 238, 460. Bianco, Baccio del, 193. Bichi, Cardinal Alex., 341. Bidasoa, river, 405, 474. Biographical Data for the life of Velazquez, 9-15. Blanc, Charles, 2, 6, 11, 226, 315, 391. Boar-hunt , The , 212-8. Bobo de Coria, El , 449. Bocanegra, 229, 263. Bocangel, Gabriel, 272. Bode, W., 145. Bodegoncillos, 69. Bodegones, 68. Boileau, 434. Boisel, 199. Bologna, city, 32. Bologna Palace of the Gonfaloniere, 349. Bolognese School, 123, 128, 365. Bonaparte, Joseph, 70, 220. Bonaparte, Lucien, 266. Bonamic, 436. Bonatti, Celiero, 84. Bonelli, legate, 103. Borgia , Cardinal Gaspar, portrait of , 284-91. Borgia, Don Francisco, 332. Borgia Palace, Gandia, 289. Borgia, Pope Alphonso, 285. Borgia, Pope Rodrigo, 285. Borgia, St. Francis, 285. : Borja. See Borgia. Borrachos, The, 133, 139-46. Borro, Alessandro del, 443-5. Boscan, 34. Boschini, Marco, 153, 341, 342, 351, 388. Bossuet, 272. Bouchardon, E., 31 1. Bourbon Palace, 69, 98, 21 1, 360, 404. Bourke, Mr., 334. Bouts, Dierik, 27, 28. Bowood (Marquis of Lansdowne), 263, 334. Boydell, John, 313. Brabazon, H. B., 400. Braga, 60. Bramante, 30. Bramarba, 308. Brandano, Ferd., 346. Braun of Dornach, 15. Breda, town, 195, 300. Breda, Surrender of , 199-209. Brend'amour, 15. Bribiesca, town, 476. Bridgewater Gallery, hi, 162, 319, 426 Brienne, 403. Brigida del Rio, 435. Bril, -Paul, 25S. British Institution, 241, 334. British Museum, 422. Bronzino, Angiolo, 122. Broomhall, Fifeshire, 315. Briicke, E., 392. Brueghel, Peter, 68. Bruges, 26. Bruna, Franc., 279. Brunet, G., 1 1. Brunswick, Anthony Ulrich of, 341. Buckingham Collection, 52. Buckingham, Duke of, 131, 175. Buckingham Palace, 327. Buen Retiro, 69, 189-96. Buenrostro, Andres de, 59. 490 Index. Buonarroti, Lodovico, 61. Buonarroti, Mich. Angelo, 30, 31, 33, 170,459. Buoncompagni, Cardinal, 435. Burckhardt, J., 163, 372, Burger, W. See Thore. Burgos, town, 95, 276, 475. Burgundian Court, 97. Burlington House, 418. Burnet, John, 8. Bute, Lord, 361. Byzantine Art, 51, 467, Caballero, Don Pedro, 32. Cabella, Fr. Gutierrez, 373. Cabrera, Admiral. 94. Cadiz, 195, 269, 31 1. Cadore, 50. Caimc, Norberto, 69. Calaba^as, buffoon, 438. Calabrese, Cavaliere, 348. Calatrava, 60, 114, 120. Calderon, 4, 25, 193, 277, 384, 41 1. Calderon, Francisco Garcia, 241. Calerge, G., 341. Calixtus III., 285. Callot, Jacques, 69, 193, 202, 212, 330. ' Calvi, Lazzaro, 365. Camail, 361. Camaron, 279. Cambiasi, 122, 184. Camillo Massimi, 362. Camilo, Francisco, 365. Camoens, 126. Campana, Pedro, 31, 32. Campori, Marchese, 293. Camugliano, 368. Canaletto, 329. Candolfi, Franc., 193. Canete, 382. Cano, Alonso, 226-9, 278, 396. “ Canon ” of Proportion, 421. Capecelatro, 113. Capuchin, the Spanish, portrait, 298. Caracci, Agostino, 181. Caracci, The, 123, 135, 227. Caravaggio, 40, 50, 55, 56, 67, 78, 171, 181. Cardenas, Alonso de, 380. Cardenas, bull-baiter, 438. Cardenas, Jaime de, 132. Carderera Collection, 279. Carderera, Val, 9, 10, 180, 224. Cardona, Lusigniano, 300. Carducho, Bartolommeo, 122, 124. Carducho, Vicente, 93, 122, 124; his work on Painting, 126. Carignan, Princess Marie, 212, 271. Carlisle, Earl of. See Castle Howard. Carlos, Don, son of Philip III., 112. Carmona, Salvator, 143, 241, 278. Carmona, town, 29, 32. Carnero, Antonio, 448. Caro, Rodrigo, 19, 21, 46. Caroselli, Angelo, 347. Carpio, Marquis del, 214. Carranza, Archbishop, 33, 435. Carreno, Juan de, 60, 87, 90, 401, 413, 457, 481. Casale, town, 1 5 1. Casilda de Fuentes, 123. Castel Rodrigo, Manuel, 303. Castel Rodrigo, Cristbbal, Marquis, 301-3. Castiglion del Lago, 444. Castiglione, Vieri, 437. Castilla, Antonio de, 41 1. Castillo, Antonio del, 137. Castillo, Juan del, 230. Castle Howard, 321, 353, 354, 364 401. Castro, Adolfo de, 382. Castro, Archbishop, 23, 76. Castro, town, 355. Catalina, daughter of Philip II., 210 Catalina, the Portuguese, 435. Catalonian War, 272, 309, 445. Cavendish, W., Duke of Newcastle, 504. Caxesi, Eugenio, 89, 122, 123, 195. Caxesi, Patricio, 101. Cean. See Bermudez. Cellini, 238. Cento, town, 347. Cepero, Lopez, 27, 40, 46, 76. Cerezo, Mateo, 234, 237. Ceron, Antonio, 428. i Cerquozzi, M. A., 347. Cervantes, Miguel, 3, 4, 141. Cesari, Giuseppe, 377. Cgspcdes, Pablo de, 23, 30, 31, 34, 45, 304. . Cevarrubias, Alonso de, 476. Chantelou, M. de, 349. Charles I. of England, 88, 95, 120, 153, 327, 380. Charles II. of England, 381. Charles II. of Spain, 131, 143, 313, 331, 483. Charles III. of Spain, 143, 313, 333, 433. Charles IV. of Spain, 451. Charles V., Emperor, 34, 434 ; portraits of, 89, 194. Index. 491 Charles Borromeo, 290. Charles Philip le Comte, 205. Charles Prince of Wales,' 120-1, 133, 175. Charles the Bold, 97. Chartres, Louis, Duke of, 466. Chcvrcusc, Duchess of, 212. Chinchilla, Anibal, 271. Chinchon, Countess of, 241. Chiswick House, 268, 361. Christ at the Pillar, 241-8. Christ, Order of, 120, 343, 377. Christiansborg Gallery, Copenhagen, 275. Christie and Manson, 325. Christina of Sweden, 340. Churton, Edward, 87. Ciampi, 358. Cid, Miguel de, 46, 76, 77. Cimabue, 126. Cincinato, Romolo, 101, 377, 476. Citta della pieve, 444. Clamores, brook, 474. Clare, Earl of, 74. Clarendon, Earl of, 40, 381, 413. Claude, Lorrain, 159. Claudius, Apotheosis of, 364. Claus, buffoon, 446. Clavijo, Battle of, 37. Clement VII., 1 5 7. Clement XII., 362. Clouwet, Peter, 279. Clovio, Giulio, 52. Cobos, Franc, de los, 27, 132. Cock Auction Rooms, London, 360. Coello, Claudio, 137, 401, 481. Coello, Sanchez, 23, 49, 84, 89, 435. Coesvelt Gallery, 318. Coimbra, 60. Colalto, General, 150. Collantes, Franc., 195. Coloma, Carlos, 195, 205. Colombi, Valentin da, 161. Colombini, C., 426. Colomo, Pedro, 310. Colon, Hernan, 23. Colonna, Angelo Michele, 364-8. Colonna, Cardinal G., 363. Colonna Gallery, 155, 363, 364. Columbus, 20. Como, 365. Conde, 295. Condivi, 138. Conference Island, 405. Congreve, 426. Constable, John, 259. Constable of Bourbon, 33. Constable of Castile, 214, 320. Contarini, Giorgio, 152. Contreras, F. Ruiz de, 300, 371. Conversation, The, 333-6. Cook, Francis, 52, 72, 244. Copenhagen, Christiansborg Gallery, 275. Coques, Gonzalez, in. Cordova, 28, 33. Cordova Cathedral, 32, 34, 87. Cordova, Juan de, 27. Cordova, St. Martha Convent, 28. Coria, El Bobo de, 449. Cornaro, G. Doge, 152. Cornelio, Cristobal, 435. Corner, Alvise, 188. Corner, Juan, 113, 117. Co)'onation of the Virgin, 466-9. Correggio, 31, 70, 18 1, 462. Correggio, town, 291. Corsini Gallery, 464. Cort, Cornelius, 170. Corte, Juan de la, 195. Corte Real, Marquis of, 303. Cortez, Fernando, 441. Cortona, Pietro da, 161, 341, 348. Cortona, town, 443. Cotan, Fray J. Sanchez, 125. Cottington, Sir Francis, 96, 121, 381. Covarrubias, 30. Cowley Lord, 216, 217. Cowper, Lord, 217. Cranach, Lucas, 21 1. Crayer, Gaspar, 221, 308. Crescenzi, G. B., 93, 130, 192, 379. Crivelli, Carlo, 29. Crociferi, 342. Cross, Michael, 121. Crozat Collection, 120. Crucifixion in San Placido, 236-41. Cruz, Pantoja de la, 90, 316. Cuba, 60. Cueva, Juan de la, 22. Cuevas, Pedro de las, 65, 87. Cumberland, Richard, 66, 173, 240, 317. Cunningham, Allan, 323, 394. Curti, Girolamo, 366. Curtis, Charles B., 13, 140, 308, 360. Czernin Gallery, Vienna, 40. Daguerre, 419. Dalay, Mauro, 72. Index. 492 Dalmau, Luis de, 27. Dante, 4. D'Argenville, 9. Ddvila, Flores, Marquis of, 120. Davillier, Baron, 382, 426. De Hcem, 407. Delacroix, Eugene, 44. Delahante Collection, 318. Delgado, N., 43. Dentone, II, 366. De Passe, 177. De Reynst Cabinet, 170. Desenfans, 31 r. Devonshire, Duke of, 268. Dialogue on Painting, Carducho, 126. Diderot, 390. Diego, Infante, 102. Diego, Origin of the Name, 60. Diego, San, 232. Disputa, The, 2. Dolce, Carlo, 2. Dolce, L., 46. Domenichino, 37, 1 6 1 , 181. Domenico, Alessandro, 26. Dorchester House, 112, 117. Doria, Andrea, 360. Doria Gallery, 2, 8, 349, 358. Donro, river, 475. Dozy, 4. Dresden Gallery, 9, 52, 225, 270, 300, 31S. Drouot, Hotel, 72. Dudley Gallery, 268. Dughet, Anne Marie, 159. Dughet, Gaspard, 472. Dulwich Gallery, 305, 31 1, 313, 423. Diirer, Albert, 5, 48. Diisseldorf Gallery, 300, 426. Dutch Art, 456. Dwarfs, 445-9. Dyck, A. van, 108, 254, 330. Dyck, Van, Exhibition, 203. Earlom, Richard, 313. Ebro, river, 329. Ecija, town, 29. Eclectics, 1, 65, 123, 128. Edinburgh Gallery, Gordon’s, 361. Egerton, Lord Francis, 319. Egerton Papers, 380-1. Elgin, Lord, 315. Elizabeth, St., of Portugal, 330. El Primo, dwarf. See Primo. Emanuel King of Portugal, 102. Emanuel Prince of Portugal, 205. Emperors’ Garden, Madrid, 103, 12 1, 462. Engelbert of Nassau, 200. Engerth, E. von, 410. England, Works of Velazquez in, 8. Enrique Felipe de Guzman, See Julianillo. Ensenada, Marquis of, 313. Epiphany, The, 78. Erasmus, 436. Eresma, stream, 474. Erfurt Museum, 162. Escalona, 21 1. Escorial, 50, 184, 293, 327, 375, 376, 37S-82. Esop, 451-3. Espina, Juan de, 95. Espinar. See Martinez. Espinosa, Juan de, 23. Este, Francis d\ Duke of Modena, 291-4. Este, Ignazio, 426. Esterhazy Collection, 124, 227. Estofado Sculpture, 283. Estroza, 461. Evelyn, Diary, 157, 164, 166, 363. Expulsion of the Moriscos, 129. Eyck, Van, 27, 188. Fadrique, Don, de Rivera, 30, 59. 1 Fadrique, Don, of Toledo, 194. Falck, Jetemias, 170. Family of Velazquez, portrait, 422-5 Farnese, Elizabeth, 72. Farrar, H., 1 18, 426. F6libien, 162. Felipe de Borgona, 29. Felipe de Guzman. See Julianillo. Feria, Duke of, 295, 314. Ferdinand I., the Great, 60. Ferdinand II., Emperor, 287, 402. Ferdinand II., Grand Duke of Tuscany, 175, 340, 444. Ferdinand III., Emperor, 10, 26, 192,216,326, 395 - Ferdinand VII., 70. Ferdinand, Cardinal dei Medici, 164. Ferdinand, Cardinal-Prince, 194, 213, 221. , Ferdinand, Prince Thomas, 41 1. Fernan Gallegos, 27. Fernan Nunez, Duke of, 313. Fernandez, Alejo, 27. Fernandez de Guadalupe, 29. Fernandez, Luis, 42, 65. Index. 493 Fernandez, Navarrete, el Mudo, 50. Fernando of Cordova, 244. Fernando, San, Academy, 183, 243. Fernando, San, Duke of, 241. Ferrara, 151, 291. Ferrata, Ercole, 349. Ferrer, Geronimo, 364. Ferreri, St. Vincent, 285. Fiammingo, 276. Figueroa, J. de Fonseca, 86. Fiorillo, 11. Flandes, Arnao de, 32. Flandes, Juan de, 27. Flemish Painting, 3. Flogel, 433. Florence, 31, 149, 156, 164. Florence, Grand Duke of, 282. Florentia, Pater S. J., 85. Florentine School, 124. Flores D 4 vila, Marquis de, 120. Fomento Gallery, 401. Fonati, Don Gerbnimo, 436. Fonseca. Sec Figueroa. Fonseca, Alonso de, 476. Fonseca, Fernando de, 300. Fontana, Jul. Cesar, 176. Fontarabia, 295, 477. Ford, Richard, 10, 1 r, 13, 62, 82, 140, 275, 322, 458. Forge of Vulcan, 135, 168-73. Fortuny, Mariano, 383, 426. Fountain of the Tritons, 197, 198. Fraga Portrait of Philip IV., 303, 309. Francesca Romana, Sta., 167. Francis I. of France, 98. Francis d'Estc, 291. Francis of Assisi, St., 230. Francisca, daughter of Velazquez, 84, 270, 276, 424. Francisco de Hollanda, 128. Frangipani, 167. Frankfort Gallery, 8, 289, 408. Fraser, S. FI., 325. Frederick, Elector, in. Frere, Sir Bartle, 76. Fresnada, 133. Frias, Duke of, 320, 476. “ Frizzly Girl,” The, 435. Fruella, Don, King of Leon, 60. Fruto, St., 474. Fuensalida, Gaspar de, 134, 415, 479. Fuentarabia. See Fontarabia. Fuente de Cantos, 233. Fuentes, Casilda de, 123. Fures y Munoz, Geronimo, 95. Gainsborough, Thomas, 217. Galilei, G., 158. Galindo, Doha Beatriz, 91. Galle, Cornelius, 177, 324. Gallegos, Fernan, 27. Galleries, The, 7. Gamiz, Pedro Lopez de, 477. Gandia, Duchess of, 289. Gandia, Franc., Duke of, 285. Gandia Palace, 289. Garcilaso de la Vega, 21, 23. Gardiner, History of England, 175. Gaspar de Crayer, 221, 308. Gautier, Theophile, n, 418. Gaxi, Rutilio, 94, 188. Genoa, 1 51, 315, 340, 343. Genovese, Prete, 341. Gentileschi, Artemisia, 377. Gentileschi, Orazio, 161. George IV., 325. Gerbier, Balthasar, 120, 13 1, 133. German Style, 28. Gevartius, Caspar, 118. Ghent, 2, 27. Ghent, St. Peter’s, 472. Ghisi, 33. Gian Bologna, 164. Gijon Institute, 215, 246, 460. Gilaberto, Jofre, 450. Giordano, Luca, 137, 421. Giorgione, 341. Giron, Don Fernando, 195. Giulio Romano, 45, 50. Giustiniani, Girolamo, 285, 302, 328, 374. Giustiniani, Marquis, 162. Goa, 19, Godoy, Prince of Peace, 212, 319, 426, 465. Goetens, Damian, 475. Goethe, 395, 463. Golden Fleece, Order of the, 100, 293. Golilla, 108. Gomez, Emanuel, 436. Gomez, Ruy, 1 1 7. Gondomar, Count, 87. Gongora, Luis de, 86, 115. Gonzaga, Vine., Duke of Modena, 436, Gonzaga Gallery, 121. Gonzalez, Bartolome, 38, 90, 316. Gonzalez, Joseph, 177. 494 Index. Gonzalo of Cordova, 204. Gordon Gallery, Edinburgh, 361. Gothic Art, 3. Gower, Lord Ronald, 177, 353. Goya, 72, 90, 143, 217, 313, 422, 440, 448. Grammont, Duke of, 373, 405, 41 1. Granada Cathedral, 282. Granada, city, 60, 125. Granada Museum, 195. Granada Royal Chapel, 27. Grantham, Lord, 217. Granvella, Cardinal, 240, 286. Gratz Castle, 41 1. Grave, town, 201. Greco, El, 35, 51, 54, 66. Greek Art, 69, 142, 348, 460. Gregory XIII., 435. Gregory XIV., 435. Grimaldi, Maria, 437-8. Grimani, Calerge, 341. Grimani, Vincenzo, 152. Gritti, Andrea, Doge, 132. Grosvenor, Earl, 323, 324. Grosvenor House, 1 1 5. Grove, The, Watford, 41, 481. Guache Technique, 144. Guadalajara, town, 476. Guadalupe, city, 124. Guadalupe Convent, 122. Guadarrama, Sierra de, 257. Guardia, La, Chapel, 123. Guercino, 159, 1 8 1 , 357. Guerra y Orbe, 278. Guerrero, 23. Guevara, Felipe de, 35. Guevara, Velez de, 88, 10 7 Guicciardini, 106. Guidi, Camillo, 255. Guidi, Domenico, 349. Guido, 2, 161, 1 81, 356. Guillen, Diego, 477. Guipuzcoa, 295, 476. Gustavus Adolphus, 158. Guterre, Aldarete, 60. Gutierrez, Pedro, 428. Guzman, Alonso Perez, Archbishop, 479. Guzman de Alfarache, 68. Guzman el Bueno, 1 17. Guzman, Enrique Felipe de, 320. Habsburg, 98, 403, 481. Hafis, poet, 74. Hague Gallery, The, 327, 336. Hals, Franz, 205. Hamen, Juan van der, 188. Hamilton Gallery, 87. Hampton Court, 274, 275, 435, 446. Hapsburg. See Habsburg. Harison, timber dealer, 380. Haro, Don Luis de, 321, 371, 381, 427. Harrach, Count, 94, 121, 401. Harrach Gallery, 401. Hase, K. 470. Hazan, architect, 91. Heliche, Marquis of, 324. Henrietta Maria of England, 437. Henry IV. of Castile, 98, 190. ! Henry IV. of France, 134, 272, 402. Henry VIII. of England, m, 252. Henry Frederick of Orange, 201. Hermenegild, 3 7. Hermitage (Buen Retiro), 469. Hermitage Gallery, 9, 120, 282, 313, 318, 41 Herrera, El Rubio, 69. Herrera, Fernando de, 21. Herrera, Francisco de, 20, 38-42. Herrera, Francisco de, Jun., 61. Hertford House, 408. Hertford, Marquis of, 217, 267, 323, 326. Hesse, Philip of, 132. Heytesbury, Lord, 144, 263. IWandcras , Las, 427-33. Hofmann, 125. Hogarth, 140, 330. Holach, Count of, 200. Holbein, 32. Holford, R. S., 112. Homer, 458. Hooghe, Peter de, 419, 433. Hoop, van der, 420. Hopeton, Sir A., 274. Horse, Spanish, 304. Hozes, Hernando de, 24. Hiibner, Emil, 171. Hudson, Jeffrey, dwarf, 437, 446. Hume, David, 456. Hunt, Spanish, 209-12. Hurlingham, 220. Huth, Mrs. Henry, 118, 275, 413. Huysum, 407. Hyde, Sir E., 381. Ignatia, Daughter of Velazquez, 276. Ignatius Loyola, St.. 182, 332. Index. 495 Ildefonso, San, Palace, io. lldefonso, San, Park of, 21 1. Imbert, P. L., 237, 312, 420. Immaculate Conception , 76. Incarnation, Convent of, Madrid, 103. Infantado Palace, 476. Innocent III., 157. Innocent X., 346, 354-62. Inquisition, The, 47, 48, 226, 465. Ippolito, Abate, 362. Irles, 152. Isabel de Anversa, 319. Isabella, Empress. Isabella, Farnese, 299. Isabella of Bourbon, 137, 219, 272-4. Isabella the Catholic, 27, 210. Isabella the Stadtholder, 131. Isassi, Idiaquez, 326. Jadraque, town, 475. Jaen, 123. Jaen, Bernardine Nunnery, 123. James I. of England, 176. James the Conqueror, 329. Jamesson, Mrs., 77, 274. Jan van der Meer, 432, 433. Jauregui, Juan de, 24. Jode, Peter de, 1 12. John IV. of Portugal, 346. John Frederick III., Elector, 212. John the Evangelist in Patmos , 76. Joseph Bonaparte, 70. Joseph's Many-Coloured Coat , 174-5. Jovellanos, Gaspar de, 418. Jovius, 49. Juan of Austria II., 344, 441. Juan II., of Castile, 98. Juan Bautista Toledo, 190. Juan de Flandes, 27. Juan de las Roelas, 135. Juan Fernandez Navarrete, 50. Juan of Austria, 103, 151. Juan of Austria, buffoon, 438, 440-1. Juan of Granada, 125. Juana, Daughter of Charles V., 98. Juana de Miranda, 83, 268-71, 424. Juana Emincnte, Doha, 272. Juana Fernandez de Velasco, 320. Juana of Portugal, 435. Julianillo, 319-20. Juni, Juan de, 35. Justin of Nassau, 201. I Kant, 390. Keir, 53, 284. Khevenhiller, 21, 1 14, 117, 285, 298. Kilian, Lucas, 33. Kilian, Wolfgang, 177. Kingston Lacy, 289, 418, 438. Knight of Santiago, portrait, 300. Knighton, Sir W., 325. Labrador, Juan, 96. La Caze Gallery, 279. Lady with a Fan, 266-8. Lambardo, Carlo, 167. Lamotte, General, 309. Lance, George, 217. Landi, Senator, 341. Landseer, Sir Edwin, 216. Laneuville, Ferd., 333. Lanfranco, Gio., 161, 179, 348. Lansdowne, Marquis of, 334, 361, 426. Lapeyriere Collection, 318, 325. Lapilla, Marquis de, 300. La Rochelle, 150. Laurence, St. See Escorial. Laurent, J., 15. Lauterio, Fray, 230, Lavater, J. C., 183. Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 421. Lazaro, San, Monastery, 329. Lebrija, Antonio, 21. Lebrun, Charles, 361, 427. Le Comte, Charles Ph., 205. Lefort, Paul, n, 283, 293. Legajres Collection, 194, 443. Leganes, Marquis de, 94, 132, 151, 202, 328. Leigh Court, 308. Lei) - , Sir Peter, 265. Lemoine, Francois, 391. j Leo X., 434. 1 Leon, Luis de, 23. Leon, Ponce de, 17. Leon, town, 279. Leonardo da Vinci, 95, 140, 172, 419. Leonardo, Jose, 195, 202. j Leoni, Leone, 103, 194. Leoni, Ottavio, 49. Leoni, Pompeo, 53, 284, 476. Leonor de Unzueta, 319. Leopold, Emperor, 410. Leopold William, Archduke, 340. Lepanto, Battle of, 89, 441. Lerma, Duke of, 75, 1 14, 131, 280, 313. 496 Index. Lerma Palace, Madrid, 190, 396. Lerma Palace at Berlanga, 476. Lesueur, Eustache, 125. Lichtenberg, G. Chr., 451. Liege, 194. Ling6e, 441. Lippi, Annibale, 164. Lippi, Filippino, 149. Lisbon, 193. Litta, Count, 294. Loeches, 1 1 5, 320. Lombard School, 18 1. London Galleries : — Abercorn, 325. Apsley House. See Apsley House. Ashburton, Lady Louisa, 481. Baillie, Hugh, 117, 336, 400. Bath House, 220, 413. Bedford, Duke of, 298. Brabazon, H. B. 400. Bridgewater House, ill, 162, 319, 426. Buckingham Palace, 327. Bute, Earl of, 361. Chiswick House, 26S. Clarendon, Earl of, 40, 381, 413. Cook, Sir Eras. (Richmond), 52, 72, 244. Cowper, Earl, 217. Dorchester House, 112, 1 1 7. Dudley, 268. Dulwich, 305, 31 1. Frere, Sir Bartle, 76. Grosvenor House, 115. Hertford House, 308. Hertford. See Wallace. Holford, R. S., 1 12. Hath, Mrs. Henry, 118, 275, 413. Lansdowne, 334, 361, 426. National, 8, 81, 216, 242, 247, 412. Northbrook, 30S, 437. Reeve, Henry, 87. Robinson, Sir J. C., 6, 72, 74, 424-5 Rogers, Samuel, 30s, 323. Salting, G., 74. South Kensington Museum, 358. Stafford, House, 263, 290. Wallace, Sir R., 217, 267, 322. Westminster, Duke of, 1 15. Yarborough, Countess of, 52. Longfellow, “ The Spanish Student, 5 ' 465. Longford Castle, 296, 353. Lopez de Ayala, 415. Lope de Vega, 4, 62, 95, 130. Lopez de Gamiz, Pedro, 477. Lorcnzotti, Count, 293. Loretto, 156. Lotti, Cosimo, 90, 193. Louis XIII., 157, 175, 377. Louis XIV., 405, 474. Louis Philippe, 81, 1 1 8. Louvre Gallery, 5, 9, 55, 82, 208, 223 -75. 333. 344. 426, 435, 447, 470. Louys, 177. Luca Giordano, 137, 421. Lucian, 453. Lucien Bonaparte, 266. Lucullus, 164. Ludolf, Job, 325. Ludovisi, Cardinal, 156. Luini, Bernardino, 244. Luis de Haro, 321. Luis del Alcazar, 244. Lumley, Sir J. Savile, 242. Luna, Count of, 299. Lurigniano, 300. Lutzow, C. von, 407. Lynford Hall, 305. Lyne-Stepliens, Mrs., 305, 31 1, 404. Machuca, Pedro, 31. Madrazo, Jose de, 279, 323. Madrazo, Pedro de, 12, 66, 3S3, 390. Madrid : — Academy, 42. Alcazar. See Palace. Calle Mayor, 88, 91, 98, 26S. Campo del Moro, 98. Casa del Tesoro, 91, 100. City, 91-3. Discalceate Nunnery, 273. Encarnacion Church, 126. National Library, 9, 208, 279, 319. National Museum, 125,276, 322, 382 New Bourbon Palace, 69,^98, 21 1, 404- Palace (Royal), 91, 96. Plaza Mayor, 91, 190. Prado. See Prado Museum. Puerta del Angelo, 191. Puerta del Sol, 91. San Fernando Academy, 364, 413. San Giles, 227. San Gine's, 228. San Isidro, 107. San Placido, 240. St. Gerbnimo, 92. Index. 497 Madrid ( continued ) : — St John the Baptist, 479. Sta. Isabel quarter, 428. Maese, Pedro Campana, 32 Maidalchini, Donna Olimpia, 355. Maids of Honour , 163, 414-22. Maino, J. B., 54-5, 130, 195, 401. Malaga, 33, 340. Malaga Cathedral, 227. Malara, Juan de, 22. Malatesta, Adeodato, 293. Malpica, Marquis of, 378. Malvasia, Count of, 128, 368, Malvczzi, Virgilio, 294, 314. Manchester Exhibition, 241, 267, 326, 464. Mandcr, Karel van, 68. Man frin Galler}', 52. Mannerists, 30. Mantua, Palazzo del T6, 45. Manuel de Moura, 303. Manzanares, river, 210. Manzano, Juan, 123, Maratta, Carlo, 103. Marc Antonio, 33. March, Esteban, 424, 451, Marchena, 27, 29. Marcos, St. (Leon), 279. Margaret of Austria, Queen, 103, 316. Margaret , Princess , 405-10. Margaret, Nun, 273. Mary dei Medici, 272. Mary Queen of Hungary , 100, 173-9. Mary, Sister of Charles V. Maria Josepha, Electrcss, 265. Maria Rosa Ribera, 344. Maria Theresa, Princess, and Queen of France, 272, 293, 402-5, 409. Mariana of Austria , Queen , 327, 395-402. Marini, 87. Mai-s , 458-61. Martin de Vos, 78. Martinez, Alonso de Espinar, 219, 224, 324. Martinez, Jusepe, 10, 40, 55, 129, iSo, 309. Martinez , Montanos , 281-4. Martinez, Sebastian, 269, 31 1. Masanielli, 345. Massimi, Camillo, 362, 363. Massimi, Vincenzo, 192. Massimo, Stanzioni, 36, 142. Mata, St. Juan de, 124. Mateos, Juan, 224. Mattei, Marquis, 398. Matteo, Prince of Tuscany, 444. ! Maurice of Nassau, 200, 201. i Maximilian II., 1 1 1. Maxwell. See Stirling-Maxwell. Mazarin, 403, 405. Mazo, Balthasar del, 424. Mazo, Caspar del, 424, Mazo, Juan Bautista del, 90, 220, 329, 37 5, 408, 424. Meade, Consul, 199. Meade, General, 275, 319. Mediaeval Art, 7, 25. Medici, Averardo dei, 113. Medici, Cardinal Ferd. 164. Medici, Cardinal Gio. Carlo, 368. Medina, M. Francisco de, 22, 24. Medina, Pedro de, 18, 91. Medina de las Torres, Duchess, 320. Medina de las Torres, Duke, 321. Medina Sidonia, Duke, 318, Medrano, Fernando, 23. Meer, Jan van der, 432, 433. : Melendez, Diego, 47. Melendez, Pedro, 102. Memlinc, Hans, 78. “ Memoria,” The, 382-6. Mendicant and Globe, 73. Mendoza, Alvar de, 286. Mendoza, Archbishop, 30. Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, 68, 476. Menendez y Pclayo, 465. Mengs, Raphael, 1, 38, 69, 83, 206, 235, 364, 419. Meninas, Las, 163, 414-22. Mcnippus , 453-5. Mercadante, Lorenzo, 26. Mercado, Thomas, 18. Mercury and Argus, 461-2. Merian, M., 177. Merimee, Prosper, 407. Merk, river, 206. Messa, Pedro de, 189. Metelli, Agostino, 364-8. Meulen, van der, 427. Mexia, Don Diego. See Leganes. Mexia, Pedro de, 21. Michael Angelo. See Buonarroti. Miguel the Fleming, 27. Michael the Florentine, 30. Mierevelt, M. van, 68, 203. Mignard, Pierre, 265, 354, 404, 409. Miguel, Painter, 27. Miguel de Alva, 479. Milan, St. Maurizio, 244. 32 498 Millan, Pedro, 26. Milton, 4. Mirabel, Marquis de, 295. Miranda, Juan de, 422. Miranda, Juana de. See Juana. Mirou, Antony, 472. Misso, dwarf, 481. Mocenigo, Alvise, 152. Modena, Duke Francis, 291-4. Modena Gallery, 293, 426. Mohedano, Antonio, 44. Moles, Vicencio, 479. Moliere, 11 Le Tartuffe,” 465. Molina, Argote de, 219. Molina, Tirso de, 20, 268. Monanni, Bernardo, 90. Moncada, Franc, de, 295. Monconys’, De, Travels, 131. Monforte, 413. Monserrat, 176. Monstrance, The, 31. Montanes, Martinez, 35, 2S1-4. Montano, B. A., 23. Monterey, Count, 94, 158. Monterey, Countess E., 114. Montferrat, 15 1. Monzon, 309. Moore, Thomas, 360. Morales, Luis de, 35. Moran, Mr., 267. Morata, dwarf, 435. Morelli, G., 301. Moret, Joseph, 295. Morctto, 108, 228. Morexon Silva, 60. Moriscos, Expulsion of the, 1 29. Moritzburg, 212. Morny, Duke of, 404. Moro, Antonio, 89, 102, 264, 372, 446. Moroni, G. B., 108. Mona, Sebastian de, dwarf 446-7. Morritt, R., 466. Motteville, Madame de, 404, 412, 414. Moura, Manuel de, 303. Moya, Pedro de, 65, 230. Mozarabic Christians, 474. Mudejar Style, 25. Mudo. See “ Mute.” Miihlberg, Battle of, 102. Miindler, Otto, 163. Munich Pinakothek, 9, 299, 401, 407. Munster, Treaty of, 403. Murcia, 54. Index. Murillo, 8, 46, 229-36, 263. Murviedro, 107. Musso y Valiente, 23S. “ Mute,” The, 50, 55. Mytens, Daniel, 446. Mythological Subjects, 457-66. Nani, Agostino, Naples, 343. Naples, Chapel del Tesoro, 159. Naples Museum, 52, 143. Naples Slums, 451. Naples, Sta. Trinity, 182. Naples, Tesoro, 179. 1 Narbona, Diego, 55. Nardi, Angelo, 122, 123, 365. Nassau, Engelbert of, 200. Nassau, Justin of, 201. National Gallery. See London. Naturalists, 128. Nature in Art, 138. Navagero, Andrea, 17, 20. Navalcarnero, 396. I Navarrete, J. F., 50, 149. Navarrese State, 328, Nero, 314. Netherlandish School, 6. Neuburg, Duke of, 292. Neve, Don Justino, 263. Newcastle, Duke of, 304. Niccolini, Marquis, 368. Nicolas, Don.de Cardona, 300 Nicolas, Fray, 379. Niculoso, Francisco, 30. Niculoso, Pisano, 26. Nieto, Joseph, 416. Nieuwenhuys, Mr., 112. Nina encrespada, La, 435. A’iiio de I ’a/lecas, 449. Nisida, 286. Noort, Adam van, 65, I Noort, Juan de, 224, 278. I Nordlingen, Battle of, 208. j Norgate, Edward, 133, Northbrook, Lord, 30S, 437. Northwick, Lord, 217*321. Nude, The, in Art, 464-6. Nunez, Delgado, 43. Nunez, Fernan, Duke, 313. Nunez, Juan, 28. Nunez, Pedro, 365. Ober-Ammergau, 237. Ochoa, Bernardo, 376. Index. 499 Ochoa, buffoon, 438. Old Woman and Omelet , 72. Olimpia Maidalchini, 347, 355-6. Olivares, Countess, 273. Olivares, Enrique Count of, 113. Olivares, Caspar, Count-Duke, 88, 113-20; portraits of , x 16, 313-6, 317-9. Olivares, Pedro Count of, 114. Olivares, town, 36. Oliver, Peter, 121. Onate, Inigo Velez, 343. Oporto, 59, Orange Family, 200. Orrente, Pedro 54, 194. Osma, town, 476. Ostade, Adrian van, 456. Ostend, 150. Osuna, Pedro, Duke of, 67, 152, 286. Ottley, W., 87, Ottonelli, Count, 368, 398. Ovid, “ Metamorphoses ” of, 2, 102, 365. Pablillos de Valladolid , 438, 442-3. Pacheco, Francisco, painter, 9, 24, 39, 42-6, 62, 63, 85 ; “Art of Painting,” 9, 31, 47 ; “ Museo Pictorico,” 9, 38, 49, 77, 133, 150, 156, 159, 163, 179, 233, 244. Palace Marshal, Office of, 372. Palencia, 27, 478. Palma, Giovane (the younger), 470. Palma, Vecchio, 94. Palomino, 6, 35. Palomino, “ Museo Pictorico,” 40, 66, 72, 131, 279, 293, 296, 31 1, 360, 408, 438, 478. Pamfiii, Cardinal Camillo, 158, 356, 362. Pamfili Palace, 10. Pamplona , View of, 331. Panneels, H., 316, 318. Pantoja de la Cruz, 90, 316, 435. Paolo Veronese. See Veronese. Pardo, hunting-seat, 96, 122, 193, 210, 218. Pareja, Juan, 1, 352.4, 425. Pareja. See Pulido. Paris, Louvre. See Louvre Caller}'. Paris, Louvre, Spanish Gallery, 118, 272. Parma, city, 72. Parma, Duke of, 86, 355. Parma Gallery, 52. Parma, School of, 50. Parmigiano, 342. Pasages, seaport, 477. Pasquino, Don, 158, 345, 356, 437. Passavant, J. D., 13,112, 205. Passeri, G. B., 343, 347, 357. Passerini Villa, Cortona, 443. Pastrana, Duke of, 428. Pastrana Tapestry Works, 428. Pau, 53. Paul III., Portrait of, 297. Paul V., 76. Paul the Hermit , 469. Paul Veronese, 50, 52, 123. Paular, Carthusian Monastery, 125. Paular, town, 125. Payo, Guterres de Silva, 60. Pedro Colomo, 310. Pedro de Chavarri, 479 Pedro de Medina, 18. Peeter de Kempeneer, 32. Peiresc, N. C., 132. Pejeron, buffoon, 435. Peleguer, Vicente, 72. Pellegrini, 122. Penaranda, Count, 88. Pcnaranda, The Bearded Woman of, 435 - Pereira. See Urquais. Perete, Pedro, 224. Peretti Felice, 435. Pereyra, 300. Perez, Alonso de Guzman, 479. Perez, de Leon, 68. Perez, de Messa, 189. Perez, Miguel, 295. Pcrnia , Cristobal dc , 438-40. Perpignan, 309. Pertusato, N., Dwarf, 416. Pesaro, Juan, 157. Pest, Esterhazy Gallery, 124, 227. Peter the Cruel, 98, 346. Petersburg. See Hermitage. Petrarch, 48. Petworth Gallery, 437. Pheasant Island, 405, 427. Philip II., 50, 120, 457. Philip III., 18, 75, 84, 129, 316, 457. Philip IV., 104-113, 187,412 ; portraits , 104-12, 412 ; equestrian portraits, 305-9 ; his end, 413 - Philip V., 311. Philip Prosper, Prince, portraits of, 410-2. Philip the Good, 97, 188. Philosophers, The, 451. Pietro Aretino, 252. Pietro da Cortona, 161, 341, 348. Pimentel, Antonio Alonso, 298. 500 Index. Pimentel, Juan Alonso, 298. Pimentel, Juan Diego, 299. Pimentel, Juan Garcia, 299. Pimentel, Juan Vicente, 299. Pindar, 31. Pin i, Paolo, 47. Pio of Savoy, Prince, 301. Piombo, Sebastian del, 32, 360. Pisa, De, 287. Pitti Palace, 166, 274, 308, 444. Pius V., 37. Plateresquc Style, 29, Plato, 455. Poggi, Gennaro, 367. Pointel, Mons., 349. Polissena, Daughter of Spinola, 151. Polycletus, 421. Ponce de Leon, 17. Pontius, Paul, 1 18, 134. Ponz, Antonio, 19, 195, 269, 305, 364. Portacoeli, 44. Potemkin, 481, Porter, Endymion, 121. Portrait Painting, 128, 251-9. Posilippo, 344. Pourbus, Peter, 435. Poussin, Nicolas, 142, 159, 160, 348. Pozzo, Cassiano del, 363. Prado Museum, 7, 12, 50, 78, 87, no, 1 1 2, 134, 137, 177, 202, 211,260, 265,316, 324, 327, 348, 364, 400, 404, 412, 424, 435, 440, 447, 449- Prague, 193, 407. Preciado, Franc, de, 160, 353. Preti, Mattco, 348. Primo, El, dwarf, 261, 310, 446, 448-9. Prince of Parma, 32 1 . “ Prince of Peace.” Sec Godoy. Prior, Joseph, 230. Procida, 286. Psyche and Cupid, 465. Pulido, Admiral, 295-8. Pulido, Don Adrian, 296. Pyrenees, Journey to the, 371, 474. Pythagoras, 453. Ouarant’ Ore, 193. Quarterly Review, 134, 469. Ouerno, Camillo, 434. Ouesnoy, Francois du, 348, 363. Quevcdo, Francisco, 95, 107, 277-81, 314; portrait of, 277-81. I Quilliet, F., 241. Ouirini, Giacomo, 379, 403, 41 1 Ouiroga, Cardinal, 53, 287. Quiros, Pedro de, 21. Quixote, Don, 3, 22, 470. Raczynski Gallery, 75. Radnor, Earl of, 296, 353. Rainer Collection, 327. Ramirez, Francisco, 91. Ranke, Leopold, 3. Raphael, 3 *. 33 . 45 . 35 ' • Raphael, Velazquez’ Opinion of, 351-2. Real de Manzanares, 218. Reeve, Henry, 87. Reggio, 183. Rembrandt, 5, 136, 207. Renaissance, 50, 264. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 325, 360, 466. Reynst, De, Cabinet, 170. Riano, Diego de, 30. Ribalta, Fr., 50, 125. Ribera, Catalina de, 19. Ribera, Diego Gomez, 17. Ribera, Dukes of Alcald, 17, 43, 45. Ribera, Fadrique, 19, 30, 59. Ribera Juan, Archbishop, 130. Ribera, Jusepe, 37, 56, 67, 78, 82, 179-S4, 343-5, 451, 457. Ribera, Maria Rosa, 344. Ribera, Per Afan de, 17. Ricci, Cardinal Gio., 103, 164. Richardson, 359, 388. Richelieu, Cardinal, 115, 158. Richter, Jean Paul, 433, 455, 456. Richter, J. P. (Catalogue), 361. Riding-school, Scene in the, 322-4. Rincon, Antonio del, 377. Rinieii, Nicolo, 341. Riofrio, hunting-seat, 195. Rioja, Domingo de la, 364. Rioja, Fr. de, 21, 85. Ris, Clement de, 236, 422. Rivera. See Ribera. Rizi, Francisco, 365. Robbia, della, 30. i Robinson, Sir J. C., 6, 72, 74, 424-5. | Rocamador, 25. | Rocco, St., School of, 153. Rocroy, Battle of, 206. Rodriguez, Origin of the Name, 60. Roelas, Juan de las, 35-8, 80, 244. Roger van der Weyden, 10 1. Index. Rogers, Samuel, 308, 323. Rojas. See Roxas. Rokeby, Yorkshire, 466. Roman Art Circles in 1630, 158-60; in 1650, 347 - 52 . Romano-Florentine School, 32, 45, 50. Rome : — Araceli, 34. Arch of Titus, 167. Barberini Palace, 162. Belvedere, 247, 362. Borgo, 157. Campagna, 160. Campo Vaccino, 168. Capitol (Campidoglio), 167, 347. Capitol Museum, 162, 164, 362. Capo di Bove, 349. Castel St. Angelo, 157. Colonna Gallery, 363. Colosseum, 167. Corsini Gallery, 263, 464. Doria Gallery, 2. Farnese Villa, 168. First Journey, 156. Janiculum, 347. Monte Cavallo, 191. Pamfili Palace, 346. Pamfili Villa, 347. Pantheon, 157, 158, 352. Piazza di Spagna, 160. Piazza Navona, 345, 348, 350. Pincio, Monte, 160, 166, 350. Ouattro Fontane, 363. Ouirinal, 240. Sacchetti Palace, 162. San Martino ai Monti, 472. Second Journey, 339. Spada Palace, 162. St. Andrea della Valle, 348. St. Ignatius, 346. St. John Lateran, 346. St. Peter’s, 347. Sta. Francesca Romana, 167. Sta. Maria Maggiore, 37. Tor dei Conti, 157. Trinita dei Monti, 31, 34, 159. Turris Cartularia, 167. Vatican, 157, 173. Via Sacra, 167. Villa Borghese, 142, 164, 364, 458. Villa Ludovisi, 159, 173, 364, 458. Villa Medici, 164. Roquelaure, buffoon, 447. Rosa, Curator, 422, Rosa, Salvator, 350. Rosselli, Matteo, 122. Rossi the Florentine, 96, 122. Rossi, Girolamo, 426. Rossie Priory, 443. Rotari, Count, 83. Rothschild, James, 321. Rouen Museum, 74. Rousseau, Jean, 134. Roxas, Fr. Simon, 300. Rubens, 15, 112, 313, 457. Rubens in Madrid, 13 1 -3, 437. Rubens’ Influence on Velazquez, 133-S. Rubens, Albert, 132. Rubio, El. See Herrera. Rueda, Lope de, 22. Ruisdael, 472. Ruiz, Don Fernando, 300. Ruiz, M., dwarf, 435. Russell, Lord John, 360. Ruviales, Pedro de, 24. Ruy Gomez de Silva, 1 1 7. Saadi, poet, 407. Sabine Hills, 472. Sacchi, Andrea, 161. Sadeler, Egidius, 33. Sadeler, Jan, 78. Sagredo, Nicolo, 273, 374. Saguntum, 107. Sainsbury, “ Life of Rubens,” 121, 274. Salamanca, 21, 27, 1 14, 182. Salamanca Galley, 177, 239, 269, 31 1, 448. Salazar, Count, 204. Salazar, Gregorio de, 59. Salinas, Joesph de, 479. Salting, Mr. G., 74. Saluzzi, G. B., 15 1 Sanchez, Coello. See Coello. Sanchez de Castro, 27, 61. Sanchez, Pedro, 27. Sanchez, Nufro, 26. Sandoval, Cardinal Balthasar, 158. Sandoval y Rojas, Cardinal, 56. Sandrart, 161, 1S0. San Lorenzo (Escorial), 50, 379-80. San Lorenzo, Sacristy, 376. San Lucar, 114, 320, 321. Sanlucar de Barrameda, 38, 244. Santiago , Knight of, a portrait, 300. 1 Santiago, Order of, 59, 377, 417. Ol 502 Index. Santiponce, 44. Santos, Fr. dc los, 153, 375, 380, 3S3. Sanzio. See Raphael. Saragossa, 309, 328. Sarmiento, Don Diego, 415. Sarmiento, Maria A., 415. Sarto, Andrea del, 124. Sassoferrato, G. B., 2, 81. Sassuolo Palace, 294, 367. Savile Lumley. Sec Lumley. Scaglia, C. A., 151. Scanderbeg, 102. Scarisbrick Church, 117. Scharf, George, 298, 322. Scheld Estuary, 478. Schiller, 472. Schidone, 44. Schlegel, 3. Schleissheim Gallery, 9, 315. Schmidt, Andreas, 1, 352. Scopas, 458. Scott, Sir Walter, 466. Sebastian dc Mon a, 446. Sebastian del Piombo, 32. Sebastian of Portugal, 102. Sebastian, San, 475. Segovia, 50, 474. Semin, J. C., 365. Seneca, 455. Seniers (Snayers), 220. Sentenach, Narciso, 39. Seo, the, 82, 328. Sera, Paolo del, 341. Serrano, 17, 191, 195. Seville : — Academy, 283. Alameda, 20, 70. Alcazar, 17, 20, 113. All'arache, 230. Archbishop’s Palace, 2S8. Carmelite Convent, 76. Casa de Misericordia, 33. Casa de Pilatos, 19. Cathedral, 17, 28, 41, 283. City, 16. Colombina Library, 38. Exchange, 20. Garden, 17. Giralda, 33. Hospitals, 19, 37. Mannerists, 30. Mariscal Chapel, 32. Museum, 41, 44, 230. Seville (1 continued ) : — Painters, 42. San Benito, 29. San Bernardo, 39. San Buenaventura, 41. San Francisco, 232. San Ildefonso, 25. San Isidoro, 37. San Julian, 27. San Lorenzo, 25. San Miguel, 83. San Pedro, 59. School of, 3. St. Clement's, 44. Sta. Ana, 25, 29. Sta. Cruz, 29, 32. Sta. Isabel, 46. Sta. Magdalene, 59, 84. Torre de Oro, 17. Triana, 20. University Church, 17, 38, 44. Sfondrati, N., 435. Shakespeare, 6, 112. Shepherds, The, 81. Sibyl, The, 265-6. Sierra de Guadarrama, 257. Sigmund of Poland, 434. Siloe, Diego de, 24, 30. Silva, De, Family, 59-60. Silva, Guterre Alderete, 60. Silva, Juan Rodriguez de, 59. Silva, Teresa de, 240. 1 Silver Fleet, The, 130. Silvestre, Israel, 193. Simancas, town, 480. Simone, art dealer, 144. Sirct, Adolphe, 66. Sixtus V., 113, 435. Snayers, Peter, 202, 206, 212. Snyders, Franz, 21 1. Solis, Antonio de, 107. Sommelsdyck, Mynheer van, 255. Sourdis, Archbishop, 295. South Kensington Museum, 358. Spada, Cardinal, 156, 366. Spagnoletto. See Ribera. Spanish Academy, Rome, 1 61 , 353. Spanish Beauty, 262, 463. Spanish Gallery (Louvre), 118, 272. Spanish Horses, 304. Spanish Hunt and Sports, 209-12. Spanish Parnassus, 279. Spanish Religious Art, 48 Index. 503 Spanish Types, 284, 463. Spinners , The , 427-33. Spinola, Ambrosio, 150, 201-5. Spinola, Archbishop, 151. Spinola, Cardinal, 356. Spinola, Polissena, 151. Spranger, 33. Stadel Institute, Frankfort, 289. Stafford House, 263, 290. Slag-hunt , The , 218-20. Standish Gallery, 322. Stanislaus, dwarf, 434. Stanislaus, King, 31 1. Stanzioni, Massimo, 161, 362. Steen Jan, 444. Stephens, Mrs. See Lyne-Stephens. Stirling, William, 217. Stirling-Maxwell, Sir W., 10, 27, 55, 66, 81, 106, 124, 125, 129, 173, 236, 275, 282, 306, 326, 334, 382, 41 1, 419, 469. Stowe, Edwin, 358, 427. Stratton Park, 343. Stuart, Charles. See Charles I. Suermondt Gallery, 177. Surrender of Breda, 199-209. Sustermans, Justus, 59. Swift, Dean, 278. Tablas, Alfonsinas, 26. Tacca, Pietro, 282, 305. Tacitus, 255. Tapestries, 427. Tassis, 176. Tasso, 168. Taylor, Baron, 8r. Tejada, Fr. de, 194. Tejufin, 98. Tenebrosi, The, 171. Teniers, 74. Tenorio, Don Juan, 20. Terburg (Terborch), in, 335. Testa, Pietro, 347. Testi, Fulvio, 291, 293, 294. Tetteringen, 204. Thackeray, 456. Thane, Mr., 217. Thirlestane House, 321. Thomas Aquinas, St., 230. Thomas of Savoy, 196. Thore, Th., 11, 65, 160, 239, 252, 254, 298, 323, 331, 421, 460, 464. Three Royal Sportsmen , The , 220-4, 261. Tibaes, Convent, 59. Ticknor, George, 384. Tiepolo, Paolo, 433. Tintoretto, 51, 153, 342, 380, 429, 457. Tirso de Molina, 20, 268. Titian, 2, 5, 50, 52, 89, 103, 120, 132, 153, 258, 405, 457- Titus, Triumphal Arch of, 167, Toledo : — Cathedral, 288. Chapter House, 56, 67. City of, 51, 52. San Tome, 53. Santo Domingo, 53. School of, 54. Sta. Clara, 55. Women, 54. Tonci, Salvatore, 360. Tons, Franz, 428. Toro, Bernardo de, 76. Toro, town, 320. Torre de la Parada, 210, 213, 220, 225, 457. Torre de Silva, 60. Toulouse, 374. Town Views ( Saragossa , Pamplona ), 328-32. Trent, 340. Trezzi, Jacomo, 93. Tristan, Luis, 55-6, 66. Tronchin Collection, 31 1. Turin Gallery, 413. Twelve Masters, The Pictures of the, 160. Twiss Richard, 279. Two Little Maidens, The, 275. Ubeda, San Salvador, 27. Cceda, Duke of, 84, 287. Uceda, Juan de, 48, 118. Ucles, 12, 59. Uffizi Palace, 164, 274, 308, 363, 413, 425, 444- Ugly in Art, The, 455-7. Ulloa, Marcela de, 416. Ulrich, Anthony, 341. Unger, William, 407. Unzueta, Leonor de, 319. Urban VIII., 89, 156-8, 287, 444. Urquais and Pereira Gallery, 408. Vaillant, 436. Valderrama, P. de, 23. Valenca, 60. Valencia, 82, 107. 504 Index. Valencia, city, 125, 340. Valencia Madhouse, 450. Valencia Museum, 82, 426. Valentin da Colombi, 161. Valentini, Count, 294. Valladolid, city, 92, 124. Valle, L. D. del, 9. Valle, Don M. Z. del, 12. Vallccas , El Nino de, 449. Valnegral, river, 191. Valvelada, 218. Val verde, J. de, 31. Van der Meer, 432. Vandyck. See Dyck. Vanloo, j. B., 317. Varela, Fr., 283. Vargas, L. de, 31, 33, 39. Vasari, 31, 75, 297. Vasco, Grao, 60. Vassilacchi, A., 51. Vazquez, A., 35. Vazquez, B., 450. Vazquez de Leca, 76. Veen, Otto van, 66. Vega, A. de la, 424. Vega, Lope de, 4, 62, 95, 130. Velada, 212. Velasco, Dona Isabel de, 415. Velasco, Juana Fernandez, 320. Velazquez, Andrbs, 95. Velazquez, Diego, 60. Velazquez, Diego de Silva, 59. Birth and Family, 59-60. Student Years, 61. Work in Seville, 68. Genre Pieces, 68. Religious Works, 75, 236, 466. First Journey to Madrid, 83. Second Journey to Madrid, 87. Appointment, 88. Rivalries, 126. First Journey to Italy’, 149. Venetian Studies, 153-5. ' The Twelve Paintings, 160. In the Villa Medici, 164. In Naples, 175. Return to Madrid, 184. Murillo’s Visit, 229-32. Portraits of Middle Period, 251. Second Journey to Italy, 339. In Venice, 340. In Rome, 345. The Antiques, 362. Velazquez ( continued ) : — Return to Madrid, 368. Palace Marshal, 372. Knight of Santiago, 377. In the Escorial, 378-82. The “ Memoria," 382-6. Last Period, 388. Journey to the Pyrenees, 371, 474. Death, 479-80. Mis Art, 4, 134, 389, 480. Influences, 133, 252. His Portrait Style, 251. Third Style, 389. Landscapes, 164, 197, 328, 470. Literature, 9-16. His Signatures, 144, 296, 301, 357. Opinions of Writers and Artists : — Bctild, 2, 238, 460. Charles Blanc, 2, 6, 1 1, 236, 315, 391. Boschini, 153, 341, 342, 351, 388. Cumberland, 66, 173, 240, 377. Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand, 325. Ford. See Ford, Richard. Giordano, Luca, 137, 421. Imbert, 237, 312, 420. Jovellanos, 418. Landseer, 216. Lawrence, 421. Madrazo, 12, 66, 383, 390. Mengs, I, 38, 69, 83, 206, 235, 364, 419. Pacheco. Sec Pacheco, Francisco, painter. Quevedo, 279. Richardson, 359, 388. Robinson, 6, 72, 74, 424. Rubens, 133. Testi, 291, 293, 294. Tonci, 360. Waagen. See Waagen. Wilkie. Sec Wilkie. His Works : — I. Religious Subjects : — Joseph's Coat , 174-5. The Shepherds, 81-3. The Epiphany, 78-80. Christ at the Pillar, 241-8. The Crucifixion, 236-41. Coronation of Mary, 466-9. John in Patmos, 76. Immaculate Conception, 76 The Anchorites, 469-74. Index. Velazquez ( continued ) : — II. Mythologies: — Venus with the Mirror , 462-6. Vulcan's Forge , 168-73. Mars, 458-61. Mercury and Argus, 461-2. Bacchus, 139-46. III. Histories: — The Moriscos, 129. Surrender of Breda, 199-209. Moiinas, 414-22. Family of the Painter, 422-5. The Riding-school, 322-3. I V. Genre Pieces : — The Spinners, 427-33. Water-Carrier, 69-72. Old Woman and Omelet, 72. Sundries, 333. V. Hunting Scenes : — The Boar-hunt, 212. The Stag-hunt , 218. VI. Views: — Pamplona, 331. Saragossa, 328-31. Villa Medici, 164. Triumphal Arch of Titus, 167. Aranjuez, 195. VII. Equestrian Portraits : — Philip III. and Margaret, 316. Philip IV., 305-9. Isabella of Boui’b on, 273. Don Balthasar Carlos, 31 1-3. Olivares, 313-6. VIII. Portraits; — Philip IV, 105, no, 309, 412-3. Cardinal-Prince Ferdinand, 221. Juan Mateos, 224. QueenMary of Hungary, 175. Queen Isabella, 272-5. Don Balthasar Carlos, 321-8. Queen Mariana, 395-402. Olivares, 116-20, 317-9. Julianillo , 3 r 9-20. Admiral Pulido, 295-8. Borro, 443-5. Innocent X., 354-62. Cardinal Borgia, 286. Velazquez ( continued ) : — Portraits (continued ) : — Duke of Modena, 291-4. Bcnavente, 298. Quevedo, 277-81. Moutahes, 281-4. Caste l Rodrigo, 301-3. Gbngora, 86, 87. Own Family, 422-5. Own Portraits, 163, 425-7. Pareja, 352-4. Unknown, 270, 299-301. Sibyl, 265-6. Juana de Miranda, 268-71. Lady with Fan, 266-8. Duchess of Chcvrcuse, 27 1 . Maria Thci'csa, 402-5, Princess Margaret, 405-10. Philip P}-osper, 410-2. Two Little Maidens, 275. IX. Fools and Dwarfs, etc., 433-57 Pcrnia, 438. Pablillo, 438. Sebastian de Morra , 447. El Primo, 448. Velazquillo, 446. Don Juan, 440. Borro , 443. E-sop, 451-3. Mcnippus, 453-5. 1 Velazquez, Francisca, 84, 270, 276. I Velazquez, Geronima, 59. Velazquez, Ignacia, 84, 276. Velazquez, Juan, 59. Vclazquillo, buffoon, 644, Venetian School, 6, 51, 52, 127. Venetian School in Spain, 50. Venice, 1 51, 340. \ Ventosilla del Tago, 21 1. Ventura, Maddalena, 183. Venturini, G. B. , 100. i Venus and Adonis, 462. j Venus with the Mirror, 462-6. Vergara, Arnao de, 32. I Vergas, 204. Verhulst, Peter, 133. Veronese, Paolo, 50, 52, 123, 342, 457. Viardot, Louis, 66, 306, 422. Vienna : — Belvedere, 380, 398. Czernin Gallery, 40. Imperial Gallery, 275. 5°6 Index. Vignola, 20, 123, 168, 366. Villa Medici , 164-6. Villaamil, G. C., 12, 134. Villacis, N. de, 12. Villafranca, Pedro de, 412. Villahermosa, Duke of, 1 18. Villalpando, 285. Villamediana, Conda de, 95. Villanueva, Protonotary, 240. Villareal, Joseph de, 475. Villegas, Alonso de, 243. Villegas, Marmolejo, 33. Villela, Juan de, 151, 152. Vifias, Jorge de las, 102. Vitellesclii, Ippolito, 363. Vitoria, town, 240. Voiture, 115. Vorstermans, Lucas, 203. Vos, Martin de, 78. Vos, Paul de, 21 1, 376. Vulcan , Forge of, 168-73. West, Benjamin, 209. Westminster, Duke of, 115. Westphalia, Treaty of, 362. Widman Collection, 341. Wierix, 33. Wilkie, David, 8, 323, 361, 392, 416, 421. William King of Holland Gallery, 318 327. William of Orange, 208. Winckelmann, 262, 348, 363. Windsor Castle, 327. Woburn Abbey, 298. Wolfgang, Prince von Neuberg, 204. Wolf-hunt , The , 220. Woman and the Dragon, 76. Woodburn, Samuel, 323. Wouwcrman, Ph., 336. Yarborough, Countess of, 52. Yepes (Tristan), 55, 56. ! Yriarte Gallery, 279. I Yta, Pedro de, 91. Waagen, 13, 144, 208, 298, 313, 321, 418, 419. Wales, Prince of. See Charles I. and Charles Prince of Wales. Wallace, Sir Richard, 217, 267, 322. Wallenstein, 157, 193. Wallis, H., 444, 465. Walpole, Anecdotes, 360, 381. Ward, Lord, of Dudley, 269. Water-Carrier, The, 69. Watford, 41. Watteville, Baron de, 477. Warrender, Sir George, 325. Wellbore, Ellis Agar, Collection, 324. Wellesley, Sir Henry, 216. Wellington, Duke of, 70. Wells Collection, 326. Wesendonck Collection, 217. Zafra, town, 233. Zamora, 27. Zane, Domenico, 105, 106. Zapata, Cardinal, 2S5, 379. Zapata, Don Fr., 70. Zaragoza. See Saragossa. Zarco della Valle, 151. Zarzuela, 210. Zayas, Catalina de, 59. Zeuxis, 86. Zola, Emile, 278. Zuccaro, Federigo, 31, 33, 122, 124, 156. Zuniga, Balthasar de, 1 14. Zuniga, Diego Ortiz de, 18 Zuniga, Ines de, 114. Zurbaran, Fr., 8, 37, 59, 77 - Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. c . ■