UC-NRLF 
 
 II 
 
 *B 3fll 7t.D 
 
 The Angels appearing to the 
 
 Shepherds, by Velazquez 
 
 M. H. Spielmann 
 
GIFT OF 
 Author 
 

"THE ANGELS APPEARING TO 
 THE SHEPHERDS" 
 
 By VELAZQUEZ 
 
THE ANGELS APPEARING TO THE SHEPHERDS 
 VELAZQUEZ 
 
"THE ANGELS APPEARING 
 TO THE SHEPHERDS" 
 
 BY 
 
 VELAZqUEZ 
 
 A CRITICAL STUDY 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H. SPIELMANN, F.S.A. 
 
 LONDON: THE MEDICI SOCIETY LTD. 
 MDCCCCXIII 
 
N 0"} 13 
 
 ^i 
 
 ,^^y^ 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. The Angels appearing to the Shepherds. 
 
 (Photogravure) ..... Frontispiece 
 
 2. The Angels appearing to the Shepherds 
 
 Facing page 1 6 
 
 3. Details compared .... 16 
 
 4. Details compared .... 16 
 
 5. Similarity of Motive and Design of 
 
 Background .... 18 
 
 6. Similarity of Arrangement . . 18 
 
 7. Identity of Model ... ,,20 
 
"THE ANGELS APPEARING TO 
 THE SHEPHERDS" 
 
 ('' Les Anges apparaissant aux Bergers ") 
 By VELAZQUEZ 
 
 I 
 
 T may well seem an incomprehensible thing that 
 at the present day when colle6lors, experts, and 
 dealers are scouring Europe and searching every 
 nook and cranny for any fine pi6ture that may 
 be lying perdu^ one of the most important compositions by 
 one of the greatest of the world's masters may be offered for 
 sale in the principal au6tion-room of the British Empire and 
 yet escape recognition by its frequenters. A combination of 
 circumstances contributed to this result when, in July 191 2, 
 the pi6lure known as " Les Anges apparaissant aux Bergers" ^ 
 which for many years had occupied an honoured place in 
 the Louvre was offered for sale after a lapse of half a cen- 
 tury. Not easily seen beneath a layer of dirt and old dis- 
 coloured varnish, hung on the days preceding the sale above 
 a cabinet in a corridor more often devoted to the display of 
 furniture and china than of oil-paintings, and likely to be 
 
 ^ In the catalogue of the Mus^e du Louvre it was entered thus : " Velaz- 
 quez DE SiLVA (Don Diego) ... 153. Apparition des Anges aux Bergers. 
 Haut. I m. 80 c. Larg. i m. 25 c." 
 
 In English measurement, 70 inches by 49 inches. 
 
 7 
 
missed by pi(5lu re-seekers accustomed to proceed straight 
 into the principal pi6lure-galleries, this large canvas was over- 
 looked by most. And to add to this curious mischance, the 
 work, being too large to be placed upon the easel on the day 
 of sale, had been leaned against the wall behind the au6lioneer 
 with a still larger canvas in front of it so that it came into 
 close view for the first time when it was lifted upon the 
 table for the brief moment during which the bidding took 
 place. The description of it in the catalogue (quite accurate 
 and full as far as it went) was evidently doubted by the 
 languid buyers who attended it was a week or two after 
 Midsummer-day when most amateurs had left town who 
 could and it was knocked down to the one person present 
 who believed, in spite of the dull indifference of the small 
 public, that beneath the veil of obscurity lay the genuine work 
 of the Spanish master ; and thus it came into my possession. 
 
 In the first half of the nineteenth century two note- 
 worthy colle(5tions of pi6tures were formed of the Spanish 
 School the first for King Louis Philippe, and the other 
 for Mr. Frank Hall Standish,^ of Duxbury Hall, Lincolnshire 
 (whom Lawrence painted as a lad in Lord Cranbrook's 
 pi6lure known as " The Red Boy," which was sold in June, 
 19 1 2). The same agents were employed by both colle6lors. 
 Louis Philippe's Galerie Espagnole, says Stirling-Maxwell,^ 
 " was formed in Spain by Baron Taylor ^ for the ex-King 
 Louis Philippe soon after the Revolution of 1830. Many 
 
 ^ Author of several works, one of them: "Seville and its Vicinity." 
 8vo. London, 1840. 
 
 ' "Annals of the Artists of Spain," 1848. 
 
 ^ Curtis (" Velazquez and Murillo," 1883) states that the painter Dauzats 
 a6ted with Baron Taylor as " the principal agents & advisers of the King." 
 While in Seville with the Baron, Dauzats copied the large " St. Juan de Dios " 
 by Murillo. 
 
 8 
 
of the best pidures were bought from Don Julian Benjamin 
 Williams, British Consul at Seville," whom Richard Ford 
 described as " the best judge of Spanish paintings in the 
 country,"^ and to whom Mr. Standish dedicated his book 
 on Seville, " in acknowledgement of the aid he has afforded 
 to his countrymen in the cultivation of the fine Arts." " The 
 pidures," says Redford,^ " were most of them obtained for 
 the King by M. le Baron Taylor, who was a sort of general 
 art-fadotum at Paris during this reign " a description 
 which, though doubtless a little wanting in delicacy or ele- 
 gance, is true enough. 
 
 Vapereau (2nd ed. 1861) says : " Le roi Louis-Philippe 
 confia aussi au Baron Taylor d'importantes missions, telles 
 que celle de retrouver en Espagne les chefs-d'oeuvre que les 
 Allies nous avaient enleves ou de recuellir en Angleterre le 
 musee Standish." This is not wholly corredl: for it is 
 evident that so far from confining himself to his mission as 
 described, he colleded a considerable number of works, both 
 for the King and for Mr. Standish, which had had their 
 permanent home in Spain ; and, moreover, it was not through 
 any dealings of his that the Standish colledion became the 
 inheritance of the King. Richard Ford ^ declared that the 
 astute Julian Williams, a good consul-general and a still 
 better judge of art, did not hesitate to enrich his wonderful 
 colledion by buying pidures from priests and sacristans, 
 asking no questions. He assumed a naivete if he had it not; 
 and thus, for nominal prices and with an easy conscience, he 
 
 ^ " Hand-Book of the History of the Spanish & French Schools of Paint- 
 ing," by Sir Edmund Head, Bart, 1848, p. xi. 
 
 ^ "Art Sales," 1888, vol. i, p. 147. 
 
 ' (i 796-1858); author of the "Handbook for Travellers in Spain" (1846), 
 of whom the " Didlionary of National Biography " states that " His articles 
 first brought Velazquez into notice in England." He reported the sale of the 
 Standish Collection for "The Athenaeum," 11 June 1853. 
 
 9 B 
 
obtained many a genuine masterpiece which had decorated 
 churches and chapels and which, in those troublous times, 
 amid the disturbance and confusion that prevailed, were 
 never missed by the careless ones in power. 
 
 " Mr. Standish," continues Stirling-Maxwell, " likewise 
 purchased largely from Mr. Williams, from whom he 
 obtained the Count of Aguila's ^ fine colled:ion of Spanish 
 drawings, probably the most important ever formed." The 
 pi6lures aftually numbered 251 though according to the 
 catalogue, 244. The extra numbers were written in, in 
 some of the copies. 
 
 When Mr. Standish died in 1841 (in 1840 according to 
 the "Di61:ionary of National Biography ") he bequeathed his 
 entire colle6lion of pidlures, drawings, prints, and books to 
 King Louis Philippe " as a testimony of my esteem for a 
 generous and polite nation, which is always ready to welcome 
 travellers, and which I have always visited with pleasure 
 and quitted with regret." Curtis (p. 5) gives currency to 
 the story, repeated by later writers, even in authoritative 
 works, to the effed that Mr. Standish willed his colledions 
 to the King out of pique, in consequence of the manner in 
 which a hint by him the offer of them to the British nation 
 contingent on the revival of the baronetcy which had once 
 been in his family had been received by Lord Melbourne. 
 But this is untrue. It ignores the denial pubHshed by Mr. 
 Standish's solicitors in Bolton, in the year 1841, wherein the 
 following words occur: " In justice to his memory we feel 
 
 ' From the Count del Aguila the Baron Taylor bought for the King's 
 Spanish gallery Zurbaran's pifture formerly attributed to Velazquez " The 
 Adoration of the Shepherds" now in the National Gallery, and latterly 
 credited by Dr. August L. Mayer to Pablo Legote (d. after 1662). It had been 
 in the Count's house in Seville since the time it was painted. (See Curtis, p. 4.) 
 The King also acquired from del Aguila Murillo's " Virgin and Child" (dela 
 Faja), afterwards the Due de Montpensier's, for the sum of 60,000 frs. 
 
 10 
 
called upon decidedly to contradi6t the assertion that he 
 offered his piftures to the Government of this country, as 
 an inducement for the revival, in his person, of the extin6l 
 baronetcy. Not only v^ould his high sense of honour have 
 prevented his entertaining such a design, but the fa6l is, 
 that the bequest to the King of the French w^as contained 
 not only in the present, but in the previous, will of Mr. 
 Standish, made so long ago as the year 1831 ; and we have 
 reason to know that he never contemplated its revoca- 
 tion." ^ 
 
 King Louis Philippe exhibited both colleftions in the 
 Louvre, the Galerie Espagnole in 1838 and the Standish 
 Colledion in 1842.^ The Standish Colle6lion filled no fewer 
 than sixteen rooms, four of which were devoted to the pic- 
 tures. Prominent among these was " The Angels appear- 
 ing to the Shepherds," No. 153 in the catalogue of the 
 Gallery. It is described, No. 7, in Curtis's " Velazquez and 
 Murillo," the catalogue raisonne of the works of the two mas- 
 ters of Spain. 
 
 In the Louvre it remained until the year 1853.^ Louis 
 Philippe on his flight from France after the Revolution of 
 1848 retired to England and at once set up a claim with the 
 French Government for all his loans to the Louvre on the 
 ground that they were private and personal property.^ After 
 
 ^ Printed in the "Art Union," 1841, p. 49, but apparently hitherto 
 overlooked. 
 
 ^ See " Notice des Tableaux de la Galerie Espagnole exposes dans les 
 salles du Mus^e Royal au Louvre" (i2mo, Paris, 1838), and " Catalogue des 
 Tableaux, Dessins et Gravures de la Colledion Standish, 16gues au Roi par 
 M. Franck Hall Standish " (i2mo, Paris, 1842). 
 
 ' Stirling-Maxwell enters it in his reference-note as " Paris. Ex-King of 
 the French. Louvre, Standish Colledion. No. 153." 
 
 ^ " Although this bequest was, in a stridt sense, private and personal, his 
 Majesty placed it in the Louvre for the use and pleasure of the public. Now 
 
 II 
 
five years three years after the ex-Monarch's death the 
 claim was allowed, and the pid:ures on their arrival in 
 London were sent forthwith for sale to Christie's. The 
 Spanish Gallery was sold on the 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 20th, 
 and 2 1 St of May 1853, ^^^ ^^^ Standish CoUedlion on the 
 28th and 30th of May .-^ It was on Monday, the 30th, that 
 Velazquez's "Angels appearing to the Shepherds" (the date 
 "May 28/53," the originally intended day, still remains in 
 chalk upon the stretcher) was disposed of: it was No. 219 
 in the Catalogue. 
 
 "The pid:ures," says Curtis, " were hastily and carelessly 
 packed, their surfaces pasted over with newspapers, and 
 they were consigned to Messrs. Christie, Manson, and 
 Woods." [The name of the firm at that time, of course, 
 was "Christie and Manson."] "They arrived in an injured 
 state; some were damaged by sea-water, many were with- 
 out frames, or with only narrow strips of gilt wood. They 
 were badly catalogued, the circumstances and the times 
 were unfavourable, and at the sale few of the objects 
 realized their full value." An unimportant injury occurred 
 in " The Angels appearing to the Shepherds," at the right- 
 hand extremity of the flowing drapery held up by the little 
 
 that the affairs of the ex-royal family have undergone so material a change, 
 the Standish Collection is to be withdrawn from the Gallery and will shortly 
 be transported to London, where it is expedled to form an important feature 
 in the public sales of the ensuing season," etc. Art Journal^ 1848, pp. 368-9. 
 Owing to dispute and formalities, however, the delivery was delayed until 
 early in 1853. 
 
 ^ The usual records give the days as the 27th and 28th and the date was 
 so printed in the catalogue; but the sale was postponed, and a slip was stuck 
 over the first-named date in a portion of the issue. There were two editions 
 of the catalogue one in English, and the other in French for the use of the 
 foreign colleftors and dealers. An introduction explained, in the name of the 
 heirs of the recently defunCt ex-king, that the sale was ordered, as a matter of 
 financial necessity, by the Orleans family. 
 
 12 
 
flying angels, and two other small points on the left, to- 
 gether with a touch on the instep of the left-hand figure : 
 otherwise the pid:ure appears to be in an absolutely sound 
 condition. Nevertheless, it was knocked down to " that fine 
 connoisseur of old pi6lures," as " The Times " calls him, the 
 Rev. W. J. Davenport Bromley, for but ^^399^ " A large 
 sum when compared to 93 gs. paid on Saturday for the 
 ' St. John ' whose originality cannot be doubted." (" The 
 Athenaeum," 11 June 1853.) 
 
 While it was in the important colle6lion of the Rev. 
 Mr. Bromley it was seen again by Dr. Waagen, who wrote :^ 
 " Since I visited Wooton Park, Mr. Davenport Bromley 
 has acquired some Spanish pictures from the Louis Philippe 
 and Standish coUedlions, of which, having known them 
 formerly in Paris, I give a short account : 
 
 "... Velazquez : * The Annunciation to the Shepherds.' 
 Boldly realistic in heads and forms, and the contrast between 
 the garish lights and black shadows very strong ; but 
 admirably painted in solid impasto (Standish Collection)." 
 At Mr. Bromley's death the colleftion was sold at Christie's ; 
 the white chalk-mark on the stretcher " 82 June 12/63," 
 
 ' The highest prices fetched in this rather disastrous sale are the follow- 
 ing: No. 31, Watteau, " La Com^die Italienne," ^^735 (now in the Wallace 
 Colledion, identified as by Lancret) ; No. 114, Murillo, "The Child Jesus 
 asleep on the Knees of Joseph," ^399 (Hoskins Curtis 353, Manchester 
 Exhibition, 1857, 1^"^ ^y Moore, and latterly in the possession of M. Klein- 
 berger of Paris); No. 219, Velazquez, ^^The Angeh appearing to the 
 Shepherds^' ^399 (Rev. W. J. Davenport Bromley Curtis 7); No. 222, 
 Velazquez, "The Infante Don Balthasar Carlos " (Curtis 135 now No. 12 
 in the Wallace Colledlion), ^^1,680; No. 232, Murillo, "Portrait of the 
 Artist," ^346 (Graves Curtis 466 acquired by William Marshall of 
 Eaton Square and sold by his heir, John W. Marshall, in 18 10. 
 
 2 " Art Treasures in England," vol. iii, p. 380, on the Colledion of Mr. 
 Davenport Bromley at Wooton Hall, near Ashbourne, where the Velazquez 
 under consideration hung in the dining-room. 
 
 13 
 
still notifies the date for chalk is singularly persistent.^ 
 The catalogue records, what is obvious enough, that it 
 is " an early work of Velazquez," and asserts that " it was 
 purchased by Baron Taylor for King Louis Philippe from the 
 Count de Aguila," thus ignoring the name of the inter- 
 mediary Mr. Williams and his colledion. According to 
 Redford^ Lord Bath was the purchaser; while "The Times" 
 and " Art Journal " contemporary reports give it to Lord 
 Ashburton, the third Baron. The present Marquess of Bath 
 has no knowledge of the pi<5lure having been in his family. 
 Lord Ashburton has met inquiry with silence. A positive 
 clue to the purchaser is to be found in Christie's original 
 sale catalogue, which gives the name (or destination) as 
 " Bathouse." ^ As two of the Botticellis purchased at the 
 same sale (see below) by " Bathouse " were afterwards known 
 to have been in the possession of Lord Ashburton, the 
 significance of the pseudonym is sufficiently clear. It need 
 scarcely be mentioned that Bath House was at that time 
 Lord Ashburton's town residence, and that *' Bathouse " was 
 
 ^ See the Catalogue of the Wallace Colledion, 19 13 (edited by Mr. D. S. 
 MacColl, M.A., LL.D.), in which it is stated that Lancret's " Italian Come- 
 dians " (No. 465), also from the Standish Colledtion, likewise bears the date of 
 sale marked in chalk upon its stretcher. 
 
 ^ Art Sales," vol. ii, p. 271. M. Paul Lefort ( Velazquez." Paris, 1 888, 
 p. 141) catalogues the pidlure, and the sales of it, in his list of "Les Princi- 
 pals Peintures de Velazquez." 
 
 ' Seven other pictures were acquired by the same mysterious collector : 
 No. 45, Vicenzo Pagani di Monte Rubiano (" The Annunciation ") ; No. 50, 
 Signorelli ("Figure of Joseph")} No. 78, Simone Memmi ("A Youthful 
 Saint"), formerly in the Ottley Colledion; No. 80, Botticelli (whole-length 
 of "Venus holding a Garland of Roses"); No. 85, Botticelli ("Virgin and 
 Child and young Saints"); No. 162, Girolamo Cotignola ("Altar-piece") ; 
 and No. 70, Botticelli (whole-length of " Venus "). As several of these were 
 seen a few years ago at Melchet Court, the residence of the late Louisa Lady 
 Ashburton, the identity of the collector may thus be averred. 
 
 14 
 
an invention designed by the audlioneers to conceal their 
 client's identity. The fiction of the " Lord Bath " purchase 
 has recently been maintained merely owing to Redford's 
 initial error ; but that the picture entered Lord Ashburton's 
 colle(flion there is no doubt. It passed thence by gift into 
 the colle6lion of the late Lady Ashburton, and when the 
 contents of Melchet Court were brought to the hammer 
 " on the premises " by Messrs. Phillips, Son, and Neale, it 
 was Lot 1,431 in the Catalogue, on the seventh day of the 
 sale (26 September 191 1). It was then strangely cata- 
 logued as by Murillo whose work, even in his first period, 
 reveals no real affinity with it. And it was thus curiously 
 described : " Figure of a man asleep, with 2 other figures of 
 watching angels, and sheep watering." Little wonder that 
 the picture was not identified by London readers of the 
 catalogue ! " The name of the purchaser was given as Baron 
 von Griindherr, who was for a time a frequent buyer of 
 pid:ures in England. . . . The name of the owner of the 
 picture when it appeared at Christie's on April 19, 19 12, is 
 veiled under the designation of ' the property of a gentle- 
 man,' but we believe that the buyer at Melchet Court is 
 identical with the vendor at Christie's." ^ 
 
 II 
 
 Since the year 1863 the pifture, the whereabouts of 
 which was so strangely obscured, had not been publicly 
 seen, so that it is unfortunate that it could not be studied 
 by the late Aureliano de Beruete, who, in his own words, 
 " had the opportunity of examining several pi6tures by the 
 
 ^ From an article by Mr. William Roberts on " The Angels appearing to 
 the Shepherds" by Velazquez, in "The Times," 15 August 19 13. 
 
 15 
 
master until now unknown." These, of course, include 
 " Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus," ^ formerly in the 
 colledlion of Don Manuel de Soto, of Zurich, and now 
 in America ; " St. Peter seated on a Rock," belonging to 
 the critic Aureliano de Beruete himself; and "The Virgin 
 delivering the Chasuble to St. Ildefonso," in the Archi- 
 episcopal Palace at Seville. There remain for discovery the 
 pi6lures, enumerated by de Beruete, which may have 
 escaped the burning of the Alcazar in 1734, together with 
 the other paintings mentioned by Palomino, Ponz, and 
 Cean Bermudez, which, in de Beruete's words, " we must 
 consider as lost." And he adds : " Several works of his 
 younger days have disappeared," etc^ 
 
 " Xhe Angels ^ appearing to the Shepherds" constitutes, 
 then, the fourth religious pi6ture by Velazquez which has 
 in recent years come to light. Distinguished by the early 
 chara6leristic of " un clair-obscur tres vigoureux et un relief 
 accuse," ^ the pidlure clearly belongs, in my opinion, to the 
 time when the first period was developing into the second. 
 But this brilliancy of the illumination is due not solely to the 
 painter's prediledlion in his early years, when he was more 
 or less influenced by Ribera for strong effeds of lighting, 
 but rather, it may be assumed, to the literal translation 
 of the text of the Gospel " and the glory of the Lord 
 shone round about them"; just as the attitude and ex- 
 pression of the principal watcher follow the words " and 
 they were sore afraid " ; while his companion in the back- 
 ground opens his mouth to exclaim in astonishment. 
 
 ^ A pidltire thus entitled, and " attributed to Velazquez," was in the 
 Louis-Philippe-Standish Sale of 1853, No. 223 perhaps the version reproduced 
 by the Arundel Society in photography, and now in Scotland. 
 
 ^ Not " Angel " as misprinted by Redford from the corre6t description 
 in Christie's catalogue, and copied by subsequent writers. 
 
 ^ A. de Beruete, "Velazquez," 1898 edition, p. 26. 
 
 16 
 
The Angels appearing to the Shepherds. (? 1622. According to 
 ^ Dr. August Mayer, 161 8- 16 19.) 
 
/ 
 
 From the principal figure in "The Angels appearing 
 
 to the Shepherds," showing the spots of light upon 
 
 the finger-tips and palm of the hand, and upon the 
 
 face and ear (? 1622). 
 
 From the principal figure in " Christ and the,Pfrgi-1nis' 
 of Emmaus," showing the spots of light! upp/j ^he 
 finger-tips and palm of the hand, and upon the face 
 and ear (? 1621). (Reproduced from "Velazquez," 
 by A. de Beruete : by permission of Messrs. Methuen 
 and Co.) 
 
Open-mouthed figure (in shadow) 
 
 in " The Angels appearing to the 
 
 Shepherds," with marked inequality 
 
 of nostrils. 
 
 Open-mouthed figure in "The 
 Musicians " (c. 1619), with 
 marked inequality of nostrils. 
 
 Realistic, gnarled hand of the 
 
 principal figure in " The Angels 
 
 appearing to the Shepherds." 
 
 Realistic^ ^}Vaded,*hand^*6fit^he 
 figune of a peasant' at right in 
 
In its illustration of the custom and duties of the 
 Biblical shepherd the picture is curiously accurate. It 
 shows the artist conversant with the life and practice of a 
 pursuit which was not without its dangers, and which in 
 consequence was provided with elaborate means of defence 
 and protection against the foe, whether man or brute. He 
 shows us here how, when the sheep had been driven at 
 night within the enclosure or cavernous space preferably 
 one"^Tn~which there was a running stream for the watering 
 of the flock the shepherd " watched at the entrance of the 
 fold throughout the night, ading as porter (the Gospel of 
 St. John, X, 3). The shepherd's office thus required great 
 watchfulness, particularly by night (the Gospel of St. Luke, 
 ii, 8, cf. Nahum, iii, 1 8)." And again : " A watchful care 
 has to be maintained by shepherds in the East, as well 
 throughout the night as by day, lest the flock should suffei 
 from wild beasts of the forest, or from the assaults of men 
 as wild the roving foragers of the desert." 
 
 The composition consists of four figures one of whom 
 is still asleep and almost invisible in the background beyond 
 the sleeping figure in front with two flying child-angels 
 above, supporting a fluttering drapery. In front, two sheep 
 are drinking at running water ; a third stands beside them, 
 and the heads of two more occupy the centre of the pidure. 
 The raised hand of the shepherd in the foreground is 
 brought into strong relief, not so much by its being 
 silhouetted against the sombre early morning sky, as by the 
 touches of brilliant light that fall upon the tips of the 
 fingers and thumb and upon the palm. Here we have an 
 exa6t counterpart of the hand raised by the young man in 
 Don Manuel de Soto's former possession, " Christ and the 
 Pilgrims of Emmaus " : the similarity is here so striking 
 
 17 c 
 
not less in the brilliant touches of light upon the face of 
 the chief figure that the definitive significance of the fadt, 
 as a piece of confirmatory evidence, need hardly be insisted 
 on. 
 
 Thte naked foot, so admirable in drawing, is observed 
 and realized v^ith the care and truth we see in those of 
 " St. Peter " (in the pid:ure now belonging to Don A. de 
 Beruete) and " St. John in Patmos " (Mr. Laurie Frere). 
 
 The man with the open mouth corresponds with him 
 (who also occupies the centre) in " The Musicians " in the 
 Kaiser Friedrich Museum. That he is the same model is 
 suggested by the fad that in both heads as is revealed by 
 the up-turned attitude the same irregularity of the nostrils, 
 amounting almost to a deformity, is clearly represented, so 
 close is the imitation from the life. Moreover, he is here 
 placed in half-shadow a device for securing depth and 
 mystery such as is also employed in the Duke of Wellington's 
 " Water-Carrier of Seville," and in the " Pilgrims " of the 
 same period, and in some measure, too, in " The Forge of 
 Vulcan " of ten years later. 
 
 As in the " St. Peter," " St. John," " The Adoration of 
 the Magi " (in the Prado), and " The Vintager," and again 
 in the "Mercury and Argus" of 1 651-1660 (Prado), and 
 even in some degree in what was probably the artist's last 
 work, "St. Anthony and St. Paul " or "The Holy Hermits " 
 in the same gallery, the chief mass of the composition is 
 placed against a dark background while the dawn, or daylight, 
 or other space of light, occupies the left-hand portion of the 
 pi6lure, near or at the top. The same contrast, the same 
 scheme and principle of chiaroscuro in a composition reversed, 
 are seen in a work otherwise so dissimilar as " Christ in the 
 House of Martha." And in the words applied by de Beruete 
 to " Christ and the Pilgrims," " the heads, hands, and 
 
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From the principal figure in " The Angels appearing 
 to the Shepherds," showing an arrangement similar 
 to that in "Los Borrachos": namely, flesh, white 
 drapery, heavy coloured drapery, one leg showing, 
 the other covered, and one foot displayed (? 1622). 
 
 From the principal figure in " Los Borrachos,' 
 showing the same arrangement (1629). 
 
draperies are modelled with great relief, and with thesM 
 peculiar to the first manner of the artist." 
 
 The draperies display the charadleristics of Velazquez's 
 work, not only of the first manner, but also of the early 
 second. " It is noteworthy," says Justi, in speaking of the 
 religious pi6lures, " 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." 
 Not only are thickness and heaviness the characfleristic, but 
 quality also, in nearly every pi6lure (not a portrait) of this 
 date, and thenceforward for many years as in "Joseph's 
 Coat" of 1630 and "Los Borrachos " of the year before. 
 Indeed, it is almost startling to find how in the latter the 
 arrangement against flesh of the upper white drapery and 
 the lower coloured drapery below it across the thighs of 
 the principal figure leaving one of the knees exposed, and 
 only one foot showing is in obvious harmony with that, 
 also in respedl of the chief a6lor in the scene, in " The Angels 
 appearing to the Shepherds." An identity of arrangement 
 such as this is curiously confirmatory. Something of the same 
 disposition of drapery is to be found in the figure of Jacob in 
 "Joseph's Coat"; and in the " St. John " and "St. Peter" 
 we see not only a like character in the folds, but the same 
 individual treatment of the edge of the material. 
 
 And here, too, we find a pretty close approach to what 
 de Beruete calls " the magnificent folds and draperies " of 
 "The Adoration of the Magi," and the same quality of light 
 and shadow as well. Another detail in " The Adoration " is 
 to be seen in " The Angels," namely, the broken angular 
 fold what French sculptors call an <^// at the elbow of 
 the Virgin in the one pidure and at that of the central 
 figure in the other ; and it is repeated in the " Immaculate 
 Conception " belonging to Mr. Frere. 
 
 19 
 
M. Bonnat*s remark (in his Preface to the French 
 edition of de Beruete's book) to the efFed: that Velazquez 
 was such an uncompromising realist that he would " re- 
 produce with rapid fidelity the first ignoble form that 
 happened to meet his eye" is seen not only in the misshapen 
 nostrils which have already been mentioned, but also in the 
 ill-formed and gnarled fingers of the shepherd's labour- 
 deformed hand the counterpart of which we have in the 
 knot-knuckled fingers of the man on the extreme right in 
 " Los Borrachos." 
 
 What enables us best to date the pi6lure, perhaps, is the 
 portrait of a model who appears, modified according to 
 necessity, in several of the early pictures of Velazquez. It is 
 he who is seen sleeping on the right, his head comfortably 
 resting on his hands a miracle of execution. For example, 
 he appears to be the man in the "Breakfast" of the Hermit- 
 age ; more dignified, he is possibly, according to some, " The 
 Water-Carrier of Seville," and more refined, one of the three 
 Magi in " The Adoration " at the Prado. That cannot posi- 
 tively be asserted. But he is unquestionably the foreground 
 figure seen in profile, now become an older man in " The 
 Drinkers." If, as we may suppose, Velazquez was here more 
 or less faithful to nature, according to his wont, the man 
 in "The Angels appearing" was some six or eight years 
 younger than the weather-beaten rascal of " The Drinkers " 
 judged by the whiteness of hair and texture of flesh. If this 
 be true, having regard to the known date of the last-named 
 work 1628-9 w^ "^^y ^^^^ ^^^ y^^^ 1622 (in the interval, 
 that is to say, of the artist's first and second visits to Madrid) 
 as that in which " The Angels appearing to the Shepherds " 
 was painted. The assumption thus receives confirmation.^ 
 
 ^ But see, later, the approximate dates suggested by Dr. Mayer of Munich, 
 and by Sir Walter Armstrong. 
 
 20 
 
From "The Angels appearing to the Shepherds" 
 
 (? 1622). The sleeping figure painted from the 
 
 model who sat for the profile head in " Los 
 
 Borrachos," as shown below. 
 
 f>om "Los Borrachos" (1629). 
 
And it may also be held, as I have suggested, that the 
 singer in " The Musicians " is the same model as he who 
 looks up from his drowsy vigil in the middle distance of 
 "The Angels appearing." If the attitude of this latter figure 
 be not carefully considered in relation to the adtion of the 
 scene, it might be regarded, by some at least, as a Raphaelesque 
 pose, an Italianate idea ; but if it be noticed that while tw o 
 men are still asleep, th e two guards have been stirred fr om 
 their watchmg by the miracle beforet hem, and are i n 
 differ ent sfages ot alertness, the~a Ttude]^plainiJls^^ a 
 n atural one, th e reverse of co nventional, and characteristic 
 of no particular school. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The flying child -angels with their floating drapery con - 
 stitute a feature almost uniquein the unchallenged_^^g;r^ of 
 the master. Angels were scarcely in the line of the great 
 i maginative realisr TiTC--wirrgtTi""sran3rngTngelr1i^^ 
 at the Column has about it little that is ethereal, and still 
 less that is mouvemente, and would probably be a creation of 
 1630. We must wait for another twenty years c. 1652 
 for "The Coronation of the Virgin " at the Prado for further 
 presentation of flying child-angels and cherubim. The 
 cha racter of the fac es is mu ch the sam ^Jn both pi6lures, 
 though the treatment of the hair is utterly^ different. But 
 during the thirty years that had elapsed between the painting 
 of the two pi6tures, Velazquez may well have revised his 
 conceptions somewhat in respect of these spiritual beings. It 
 may be hazarded that as Velazquez had married Pacheco's 
 daughter four years before in 161 8 he used his first-born 
 as his model, that is to say, his daughter, Francisca, who 
 married Juan Bautista del Mazo in 1634. 
 
 It has been curiously remarked that characteristic 
 21 
 
though these little figures may be of the Spanish master, the 
 conception suggests an inspiration from Rubens. Conceivably 
 this may be so. Just as we can scarcely doubt that there is 
 a good deal more than coincidence in the striking similarity 
 which Justi makes a futile attempt to explain away between 
 the chief group in "The Surrender of Breda" (1638-41), 
 together with horse and crossing lances to the left, and those 
 in Rubens's " Meeting of Ferdinand, King of Hungary, and 
 the Cardinal Infante at Nordlingen" (1634-5) at Vienna, his 
 " Reconciliation of Esau and Jacob" (i 6 1 5- 1 8) in the Munich 
 Pinakothek, as well as in his "Meeting of Abraham and 
 Melchisedech " (1626-28) belonging to the Duke of West- 
 minster whether seen by Velazquez in sketch or engraving 
 need not be discussed so, we may believe, might he possibly 
 have been influenced by the sight of such a group from the 
 hand of Rubens. But was there such a one .? 
 
 Rubens's first visit to Spain was in 1 603, when Velazquez 
 was not yet out of the nursery. Before 1600, we are told, he 
 had painted the " Annunciation " now in the Hof Museum 
 at Vienna; that work contains floating angels with drapery 
 in an attitude very similar, especially in the juxtaposition of 
 the heads. It can hardly be suggested that this picture was 
 carried by Rubens to Valladolid with the others that he took 
 with him, for the history is pretty well known. But it is 
 recorded that while he was eating his heart out in that city 
 awaiting the return of the Court, the Fleming occupied his 
 time in painting, among other things, another "Assumption " 
 which Velazquez may have seen either itself or some copy of 
 it on his first visit to Madrid nineteen years later. Again, 
 a couple of winged boys with a floating drapery flutter near 
 the upper edge of " The Adoration of the Magi " in the 
 Prado. It may, or it may not, be significant; most probably 
 not. It is all the purest conje6lure but so, too, is the sug- 
 
 22 
 
gestion that these well-proportioned and perfe6lly natural 
 boys are inspired by any group of Rubens's marvels of 
 chubby rotundity. 
 
 More likely is it that the inspiration if such it was 
 was derived from El Greco's " Annunciation " at that 
 time at San Vicente in Toledo, painted and placed there 
 before Velazquez was born. It is more than probable that 
 Velazquez saw this pi6ture on his first journey to Madrid 
 early in 1622, for Toledo is the last stopping-place before 
 the capital is reached. Indeed, de Beruete, speaking of the 
 influence exercised upon the painter by El Greco's works, 
 observes : " He doubtless saw and studied them at Toledo, 
 where there are to-day about sixty, and where at that epoch 
 nearly all his works must have been colle6led. Velazquez, 
 who had avoided the influence of Rubens, and escaped the 
 sedu6lions of the Venetians, doubtless found in El Greco 
 something superior, which he tried to assimilate." And he 
 draws attention to the faft that Palomino, in the first half of 
 the eighteenth century, had expressed the same opinion. 
 Furthermore, he bears witness to " the adoption by Velaz- 
 quez of certain silvery grey tints in the c nlnnring^ and the 
 use of special carmines^' which is just what we^ find, more 
 particularly, in the finger^tfps oFthe little floating figures^in 
 "TKe^Angelilapp^eDrifigV**" '" ^~ 
 
 And yet the picture, taken as a whole, appears to have 
 been painted under the diredl influence of Ribera. Pacheco, 
 teacher of Velazquez and his father-in-law, tells us that the 
 close study of nature which laid the foundations not only of 
 Velazquez's merits but of his defefts and made upon him 
 " a deep and indelible impression warped him from 
 Raffaelle and Michel Angelo to Ribera and Stanzione." 
 Justi (p. 179), while endorsing Pacheco's assertion that " my 
 son-in-law follows the same path," points out that by 1630 
 
 23 
 
Velazquez had got rid of his dark manner which " was 
 closely related to the style of Ribera, whom he even 
 imitated." 
 
 This impress of Ribera upon Velazquez in the latter's 
 early years is now universally acknowledged. Take " Los 
 Borrachos " of 1629 (I give the date of the payment for 
 the pi6lure recorded in the Royal Archives in Madrid). The 
 artist had now become entirely himself. Yet we are told 
 that " the subjedl, style, and colouring offer some resemblance 
 to the celebrated pidlure of ' Silenus ' in the Naples Gallery, 
 painted by Ribera in 1626 ": ^ that is to say, to a pi6lure of 
 at least two years earlier. 
 
 Now, this was before Velazquez made his first journey 
 to Italy and consequently before he could personally have 
 met with Ribera who had certainly left Valentia when the 
 young Sevillian was only about seventeen years of age and as 
 yet unknown as a painter. But it must not be supposed that 
 Ribera's works were out of his reach for study and assimila- 
 tion. The imitation revealed in " Los Borrachos " affords 
 evidence of it; while, as for proof positive, we have it on 
 record that in 1 620 the year in which Ribera was appointed 
 Court painter to the Spanish Viceroy in Naples, and two years 
 before the " Angels Appearing to the Shepherds " was 
 painted " the Duke of Osuna had, after his return from 
 Naples, brought that artist*s works to his family seat, and 
 to the local collegiate church containing the family vaults." ^ 
 This estate of the ex-Viceroy was actually in the province of 
 Seville, not far from the city where Velazquez was at work.^ 
 
 ^ See Curtis, p. 18. Ribera's etching of his picture is dated 1628. 
 
 ' Justi, p. 67. 
 
 ' Mr. Standish, in his " Seville and its Vicinity," tells us that the Dukes 
 of Ossuna, or Osuna, had a palace in the parish of St. Catherine of the city of 
 Seville. 
 
 24 
 
Stirling-Maxwell is not less explicit on this point. Dealing 
 with Velazquez's bodegone period he says : " an importation 
 into Seville of pid:ures by foreign masters, and by Spaniards of 
 other schools, drew his attention to new models of imitation, 
 and to a new class of subjedl. Among them were piftures 
 by Ribera which he began to imitate if not to copy." Among 
 such new sources of inspiration it would not be surprising if 
 some subjeft, even some design, by Ribera, had been avail- 
 able through which the young Velazquez, who at the epoch 
 I am suggesting was only twenty-one years old, was encour- 
 aged and impelled to the important and scholarly compo- 
 sition of two years later, just as he is declared to have been 
 inspired to " Los Borrachos " by Ribera's Naples pidture of 
 1626. Now, if Sir Walter Armstrong is right in his belief 
 that the pi6lure belongs, in part at least, to 1633-1635,-^ the 
 problem becomes in one dire6tion more easy of solution, for 
 Velazquez had by that time been welcomed to the com- 
 panionship of his great compatriot and admitted to his 
 studio, where works in all stages of design and progress 
 would have been disclosed to his view. 
 
 One of the pi6lures which, in Stirling-Maxwell's 
 words, Velazquez " began to imitate if not to copy " but 
 with fundamental modifications and re-arrangements was 
 " The Angels appearing to the Shepherds." It is apparently 
 inspired by a smallish pidlure attributed to Spagnoletto 
 which in 1778 was in the Dusseldorf Gallery (of which 
 coUedlion the major portion was removed to Munich in 
 1805). It measures 37 French inches in height by 47 in 
 width. In this picture two figures are reclining on the 
 
 ^ Sir Walter Armstrong points to certain details as suggesting that, in his 
 opinion, the pi6lure was not completed, as he says, " at one continuous attack " ; 
 the floating angels, especially, he thinks, resemble the work of Velazquez in 
 about 1633 and may have been put in over the dark background. 
 
 25 D 
 
ground, and a third, attended by a dog, stands on the extreme 
 right pointing to where a chubby angel is in flight beneath 
 a floating drapery. The shepherd on the left looks to the 
 right ; he on the right, asleep, turns his body and inclines 
 his head to the left of the pidure. The scene takes place in 
 full daylight and is set in the open air. Th ere are, the refore, 
 no st rong contrasts of illumination, and apparently no par- 
 ticular vigour is displayed in the setting forth^_ The motif 
 iiTthe two pictures T^Hmilar, yet the general resemblance 
 of the Dusseldorf picture to " The Angels appearing " is less 
 striking than that which exists between Velazquez's " Breda" 
 and Rubens's " Ferdinand, King of Hungary." The com- 
 position, too, is dissimilar; and, moreover, in suavity of line 
 and harmony of design, the Dusseldorf pifture appears unique 
 in the work of Ribera.^ 
 
 Every student of the history of the Spanish school is 
 aware of the inter-imitation pra6lised by the leading group 
 of painters at about this period. Ribera, who had copied 
 Raphael and the Carracci, and then Correggio in Parma 
 closely imitating the last-named during the earlier part of his 
 Italian career, and Caravaggio afterwards and who in his 
 " Silenus " was certainly inspired by Rubens's " Bacchanal " 
 now in the Hermitage (just as "Silenus" was the forbear 
 of " Los Borrachos ") was himself a frequent source of in- 
 spiration. Zurbaran (?) imitated him, alike in conception 
 and arrangement, in his masterpiece, " The Adoration of 
 the Shepherds" in the National Gallery,^ just as, in his 
 
 ^ It is matter for regret that this canvas cannot well be reproduced here, 
 for the minute line engraving, by B. Hiibner, is so small that it is almost 
 covered by a postage-stamp. The present v^^hereabouts of the pidlure is 
 unknown to me. 
 
 * But see note, p. lo. This work, it will be remembered, was up to 
 recent years accepted as a Velazquez. Sir Edmund Head, in 1848, believed 
 it to be "a copy after Ribera and in close imitation of the style of that artist." 
 
 26 
 
" Adoration of the Magi " at Grenoble, he presumably- 
 imitated the design and chief group of Velazquez's pic- 
 ture of the same subject now in the Prado but without 
 Velazquez's chara6leristically heavy draperies. Otherwise 
 Velazquez must have imitated him which from the stand- 
 point of development of style cannot readily be believed. 
 So, too, Murillo, a few years later, in his "Adoration" 
 in the Vatican, imitated the National Gallery picture already 
 alluded to. More than that, Murillo's "St. Peter in 
 Prison," painted for the Hospital of La Caridad and now at 
 the Hermitage, was aftually described as a Ribera in the 
 " Musee de Peinture " (iii, 178), there engraved as such by 
 Reveil ; while, par revanche^ Ribera's " Ecce Homo " in the 
 Academy of San Fernando in Madrid was engraved by 
 Navarrete as a Murillo ! And until the last edition of the 
 Prado Catalogue the full-length pi6lure of " The Repentant 
 Magdalen" (No. 1,105) ^^^ classed as a Murillo, and has 
 but recently been accepted as by Ribera, instead of an 
 imitation by the young Sevillian who studied Ribera's work 
 on his visit to Madrid in 1643. Plagiarism, it will be seen, 
 was rife and unashamed. Velazquez, as has been shown, 
 saw no harm in adopting for his " Breda " several striking 
 details from Rubens's " Ferdinand, King of Hungary, and 
 the Cardinal Infante." Just so Murillo made up his " Vision 
 of St. Francis," at the Palazzo Bianca in Genoa, from Ribera's 
 " Ecstasy of St. Francis " at the Prado (using the same head) 
 and the angel from the same painter's "St. Jerome" at 
 Naples ; and in his design of " St. James the Greater " at 
 Madrid practically repeated merely reversing it Ribera's 
 " St. Simon " in the same gallery. Inter-imitation, therefore, 
 
 Justi declared it peculiarly Ribera-like in its details; but in i860 Viardot, 
 following the " Correo Nacional " of 1838, proclaimed its authorship as that of 
 Zurbaran which has since been generally acknowledged. 
 
 27 
 
and similarity of subjed: and design, even identity of passages 
 and of figures, is acknowledged to be a common charadleristic 
 of the School, especially in the first half of the seventeenth 
 century 
 
 /There are certain minor yet important characteristics 
 of details which, in the determination of authorship, should 
 not be overlooked. One of the most striking is the elongation 
 of finger s^'^ViAx.ot^^M^yN^^^ usually to be found in "R^ra ^ 
 and never, as far as I am aware, in Velazquez; another i s 
 the heaviness-ol^-dr^rperi^salmost alwa ys seen in V"elazq iLZ 
 (especially in his earlier pi6lures) and rarely in Ribera. 
 Proof of these peculiarities is seen in many of the pictures 
 of Ribera well known to the student. 
 
 IV 
 
 But to return to the little fluttering Messengers. 
 
 " AnftfilsLl lpf this type are Velazqu ez's own. They are, 
 indeed, asceti^ />///^ rather than angels7j .nd but tor tTielr 
 e arnestness and lack of sensuous beauty^ t he pi<^ture ^so 
 li ttle is it inspired by any tou ching religious emoti on 
 might almost as well be entitled " Cupids announcing^tcr 
 Shepherds the Birth of Venus." They are wholly different 
 from the rotund and poorly-constru(5led boy-angels that 
 float in Ribera's important " Pieta " at Naples, and from the 
 more playful and ill-imagined winged attendants, heavy and 
 
 ^ Compare, for example, at Dresden: "The Deliverance of St. Peter,*' 
 "St. Agnes," "St. Andrew," and "The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence"; at 
 Berlin, "St. Sebastian"; at the Prado, "The Penitent Magdalen," "Jacob 
 receiving Isaac's Blessing," " St. Andrew," " The Deposition," " A Penitent 
 Anchorite," and "The Ecstasy of St. Francis of Assisi"; at Milan, "St. 
 Jerome"; the "St. Sebastian," "St. Jerome," and "Pieta" in the Naples 
 Museum ; and in the Louvre, " Christ at the Tomb," and " The Adoration 
 of the Shepherds." 
 
 28 
 
pudding-faced, which we see in the same painter's " Con- 
 ception " in the Prado. They have nothing in common 
 with the flying attendant in his " St. Francis of Assisi in 
 Ecstasy " in the same museum, and still less, alike in concep- 
 tion, character, and treatment, with the full-grown floating 
 angel that seeks to hinder the departure of Hagar in Prince 
 Doria's pi6lure by the same master. Zurbaran, too, believed 
 in a celestial messenger of a more responsible type, as he 
 shows in his " St. Bonaventura visited by an Angel " now in 
 the Dresden Gallery. But in no case is there the kind of 
 individuality which distinguished Velazquez; El Greco 
 comes the closest, but even he bears no technic al parallel to 
 the powerful, firm, and mast erly handling of the sort tha t 
 c haracterizes the younger p ainter. It must also be observed 
 
 tWfJJTfi drappry nn whjchlthjgJjZ^:-,^.?^ HbveHng is 
 
 Strongly to uched, chiefly about the edges, with that o range- 
 yellow pigment which those who have studied Velazq uez's 
 paIette_c ommonly accept as a hall-mark oT his^woTk, so 
 partial to it, as Justi reminds us, was the painter, and so often 
 did he use it in his acknowledged pi6lures. 
 
 The painting of the sheep m erits attention, n ot only be- 
 cause iToffe^rs some 6TtTie"most masterly execution and silvery 
 colour of the whole composition, but_^ecsrirse"'6rth'e'some- 
 whatj;emarKab5e^^ what is rather silky^ur 
 
 than wool. The unsurpassed power andfelicity of Velazquez 
 in t he trutEful anTrea listic rendering of animals of horses 
 and dogs has been the TKeme of all writers and critics, 
 de Beruete the latest of them. We here recognize equal life 
 and truth in his painting of sheep. But their fleece is not 
 the sheep's wool we see in Ribera's " Adoration of the 
 Shepherds " in the Louvre, or in Zurbaran's (?) rendering of 
 the same subjeft in the National Gallery; their silkiness 
 co rresponds with that w hich we meet^with in manyoftKe 
 
 29 
 
sheep of Velazquez's fellow townsman, Murillo. That is to 
 say, of the score or more of authentic pi6lures by Murillo 
 into which sheep are introduced, about half present the 
 silky, furry type: the "St. John" in the National Gallery 
 may be cited in evidence. All of which points to the truth 
 of the statement which has been made by artists who have 
 painted in the south of Spain that about Seville there exists 
 now, as in the past, a breed of sheep distinguishable, as 
 regards their skins, from the ordinary woolly kind: a type 
 truthfully rendered by Velazquez and Murillo alike. It is 
 interesting to learn that at Burton Park, near Petworth, is a 
 flock of Spanish sheep approximating far more to the silky 
 Sevillian breed that we see in " The Angels appearing " 
 than to the woolly sheep of England. 
 
 V 
 
 As has been pointed out, the fa6t need not surprise us 
 that no early documentary record of this pi6lure is known 
 to exist other than the statement that it was in the posses- 
 sion of the ancient family of the del Aguilas before it was 
 obtained from Don Julian Williams by Mr. Standish's 
 agents; for, as de Beruete and others maintain, a number of 
 Velazquez's piftures are known to have been lost and others 
 destroyed by fire among those which had been inventoried, 
 and several more entirely unrecorded. A prominent instance 
 is the '* Adoration of the Magi " in the Prado, here several 
 times mentipned : it is not entered in the inventories of the 
 Royal palaces and nothing of its history is known. ^ Another 
 is the "Christ at the Column" (c. 1634) in the National 
 Gallery, which, painted at a date corresponding to the hey- 
 
 ^ See Curtis, p. 6. 
 30 
 
day of the artist's career and fame, had remained totally 
 unsuspefted by every writer up to the time of its sale 
 in Madrid as late as 1860^ three years before "The 
 Angels appearing " vanished into the obscurity of the 
 Ashburton CoUedtion. Similarly, " Christ in the House of 
 Martha " was so little known that it is said to have made 
 its first acknowledged appearance in a London sale-room, 
 when, so report has it, it was knocked down for the sum of 
 five shillings. 
 
 After accepting all de Beruete's conclusions as to the 
 authenticity, or the reverse, of the pidtures he examined, 
 or, including the lost piftures, admits the possibility of, 
 there are not more than one hundred and thirty paintings 
 accepted by him as constituting the entire achievement of 
 Velazquez a poor total (even though his official duties be 
 taken into account) for a facile and industrious hand working 
 throughout forty years and more ; an average, that is to say, 
 of no more than three and a fraction a year. It affbrds 
 satisfaction, therefore, to add to the sum of the artist's known 
 ceuvre the masterpiece which has disappeared from the 
 public ken for half a century past, and which after that 
 prolonged period of obscurity, at last re-emerges into the 
 light of day. 
 
 VI 
 
 It is not enough, in these latter days, when we look to 
 expertise, highly specialized, to establish or sweep away the 
 claim to authenticity of a work of art, that the authorities 
 
 ^ Not " 1862 or 1863," ^^ hazarded by de Beruete (p. 43) as the date of 
 the acquisition of the picture by Lord Savile in Madrid. In the same year, 
 i860, the pidure was lent to the Summer (Old Masters) Exhibition at the 
 British Institution. 
 
 31 
 
of a former day should have declared in favour of it. The 
 acceptance of "The Angels appearing " as a genuine work 
 of Velazquez by Julian Williams, Dr. Waagen, and Stirling- 
 Maxwell, and others of their authoritative contemporaries, 
 and of M. Lefort a few years ago, has therefore no longer 
 quite the weight it enjoyed with a former generation. The 
 attestation of art scholars of the highest authority of to-day 
 becomes then of peculiar importance. Being, as we think, 
 less indulgent and better equipped than their forerunners, 
 the experts of the present day secure for their more scientific 
 and reasoned decisions greater confidence than was reposed 
 in those of former times. Special interest, therefore, belongs 
 to the pronouncements of Dr. Mayer and Sir Walter 
 Armstrong, among those of others. 
 
 Dr. August L. Mayer, of the Alte Pinakotek, Munich 
 recognized as one of the greatest living authorities and 
 regarded as natural successor to de Beruete on the works of 
 Velazquez and the Spanish School records thus his opinion, 
 in a letter (here translated) dated from the Royal Old Pina- 
 kotek, 25 April 191 3: 
 
 "... There is for me not the slightest doubt that the pi(5lure is 
 an incontestable i genuine work by the hand of the young Velazquez. I 
 believe that the 'Annunciation to the Shepherds' was painted by 
 Velazquez at Seville in 161 8 or 1619 but not later." [I have 
 already given my reasons for postulating the date as 1622.] " There 
 is very clearly seen in the naturalism, the manner of treatment of 
 the lighting and I suppose also the colour but above all in all the 
 upper part, the little angels, the strongly pronounced influence of 
 Ribera. We know by the master and father-in-law of Velazquez, 
 Pacheco, that Velazquez greatly admired Ribera, and your pidlure is 
 a new and important proof of it. 
 
 " The technique of your pidure reveals the very great resem- 
 blance with that of St. Peter in the Beruete CoUedtion in Madrid." 
 
 32 
 
Sir Walter Armstrong, Dire6lor of the National 
 Gallery of Ireland, and author of "The Life of Velazquez," 
 expresses an opinion strongly favourable to the authenticity 
 of the pi6lure although, in his view, the date of it cannot 
 be so closely determined. As has been pointed out, this idea 
 is the more interesting as by 1633 Velazquez had fore- 
 gathered with Ribera in Naples. Sir Walter writes, under 
 date 27 June 191 3: 
 
 " So far as my opinion goes, your pidture is an early Velazquez, 
 dating in part, at least, from about 1633. Much of it seems to me 
 almost cotemporary with the * Christ on Cross ' at Madrid, which 
 I think must have been painted earlier than the date often given, 
 namely, 1638. Your picture is, on the whole, in a very fine state, 
 and I should call it one of the most important works of the master's 
 early maturity." 
 
 The provenance of the pidure and its history, based on 
 such previous accounts as are available, may be summarized 
 thus: 
 
 Said to have been in the Count del Aguila's Colledion 
 (which collection contained pi6tures acquired in the 
 seventeenth century dire(5t from the artist). 
 
 Bought thence, by Don Julian Williams, British Consul in 
 Seville, acting as agent as well as colledtor. 
 
 Acquired from Mr. Williams by Mr. Frank Hall Standish, 
 before 1830. 
 
 Bequeathed by Mr. Frank Hall Standish to King Louis- 
 Philippe (183 1, taking efFeft, 1841). 
 
 Lent by King Louis-Philippe to the Louvre, 1 842. 
 
 Exhibited in the Gallery of the Louvre, 1 842-1 853. 
 
 Surrendered by the French Government to the heirs of the 
 ex-King and sent to England, 1853. 
 
 33 E 
 
At the sale of the King's Colledion at Christie's, 1853, 
 
 bought by the Rev. Walter Davenport Bromley. 
 At the sale of the Davenport Bromley Colle6lion at Christie's, 
 
 1863, bought by Lord Ashburton. 
 At the sale of Lady Ashburton*s (Melchet Court) Collection, 
 
 by Phillips, Son, and Neale, 191 1, bought by the 
 
 Baron von Griindherr. 
 At the sale at Christie's of " the property of a gentleman," 
 
 said to be the Baron von Griindherr, 19 12, bought by 
 
 Mr. M. H. Spielmann. 
 
 See Dr. Waagen: "Art Treasures in England," vol. iii, p. 380. 
 
 See Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell : "Annals of the Artists of Spain," 184.8. 
 
 See Lefort: Velazquez," Paris, 1888. 
 
 See Curtis : " Velazquez and Murillo," 1 883, No. 7 in the catalogue raisonne. 
 
 See "La Revue de I'Art Ancien et Moderne," Paris, July 1913. 
 
 See "The Times," 15 August 191 3. 
 
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