VE LAZ QVE Z AND HIS WORKS. IL VELAZaVEZ AND HIS WOEKS: BY WILLIAM STIRLING. M LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. i86 Stirling (Maxwell) (W.) Velas-X quez, and his works, the excessively scarce \ FIRST EDN, -with vii>n. portrait, and title in red I and black, post 8vo, orig orange doth, uncut, \m 2IS Parker, 1855 / Advantage should be taken of this opportunityJ<>y secure such a cheap copy. "'- PREFACE. rPHE following pages were designed to contain the life of Velazquez, as narrated in the Annals of the Artists of Spain (8vo. London, 1848), with such additions as its re-publication in a separate form seemed to require, and as later travel and reading have enabled me to supply. In the execution of this design, how- ever, the work has been nearly re-written. I hope that it may not have been increased in bulk without being also somewhat improved in quality. The catalogue of prints is founded on a list of those in my own collection, and in the still larger collection of my friend, Mr. Charles b 2676SG Tl PREFACE. Morse,, to whom I am indebted for much kind aid in the compilation. To this list I have added the names of all the prints that I could see, or hear of, elsewhere ; and if it be not a com- plete catalogue, it is at least the first that has yet been attempted of the prints after the great master of Castille. The only materials for the personal history of Velazquez are to be found in the account of his early life in the work of his father-in-law, Pacheco, printed in 1649 ; and in the biographies of Spanish Artists, published by Palomino, in 1724, and by Cean Bermudez, in 1800. Except the brief glimpse of him afforded in the verses of Boschini {see infra, p. 161), I know of no other source of information. Cumberland, in com- piling his Anecdotes of Painting in Spain (2 vols. i2mo, London, 1782), appears to have followed Palomino alone ; while later writers have gene- rally been contented to take their facts from the laborious and accurate Cean Bermudez. In the preface to my Annals of tlie Artists of Spain, I have so fully discussed the merits of the principal ^n^iters, Spanish, English, French, and German, PREFACE. VU on the biography of Spanish artists, that I do not think it necessary now to repeat my remarks. But since the Annals appeared, a new biography of Velazquez has been put forth at Paris. It forms two Uvraisons of a work called Histoire des Peintres de toutes les ^coles, now in course of manufacture by M. Charles Blanc, under the direction of M. Armengaud, and apparently got up for the sake of the woodcuts, which, although generally taken from well-known engraved sub- jects, are often admirably executed. Of the notice of Velazquez, extending to sixteen quarto pages, it is sufficient to say that it is still more inexact than the worthless books of MM. Quil- liet and Huard, from which it has been compiled. On the first page is a woodcut portrait, which is called the portrait of Velazquez, because baron Taylor was pleased, on his own authority, so to designate a picture which he purchased in Spain for the late king Louis Philippe. An old copy of the well-known portrait in the palace of the Uffizi at Florence, which hung in the same room at the Louvre, might have enabled him to avoid or correct the blunder, which M. Blanc also b 2 Vm PREFACE. might have escaped had he taken the trouble to consult the ordinary print portraits of Velazquez. The carelessness which is thus displayed on his first page, follows M. Blanc through his whole work ; and I know few books so little capable of aflfording either instruction or amusement. London, Feb. 25, 1855. << >w CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Painting of slow and late growth in Spain i Early painters in Aragon 2 Schools of Andalusia, Castille, and Valencia 2 Louis de Vargas 3 Juan Villegas Marmoleja 3 Pablo de Cespedes 3 Luis Morales 4 Vicente Juan Macip 4 Fernando Gallegos 4 Alonso Berruguete 5 Domenico Theotocopuli, &c 6 The Escorial ; and the artists of Philip II 6 Alonso Sanchez Coello 6 Juan Fernandez Navarrete, el Mudo 6 Devotional character of Spanish art 7 Its causes 7 Classical learning never popular in Spain 8 The nobility as patrons of art 9 Mendoza, dukes of Infantado 9 X CONTENTS. FA6B Duke of Alba 9 His castle of Alba de Tonnes 9 His gardens at La Abadia 10 Marquess of Santa Cruz 11 Antonio Perez 11 Duke of Villahermosa 12 Luis de Avila, &c 12 The Churcli the great patron of art 12 Wealth and rivalry of the religious bodies 13 The painter a teacher of religion I4> 15 Vicente Macip 16 Nicolas Borras 17 Nicolas Factor, &c 17 Artists and works of art protected by the saints 17 The St. Jerome of Guisando 18 Gaspar Becerra 18 Macip, and Sanchez Cotan 19 Influence of the Inquisition 20 Its inspectors of art 21 Fr. Juan Interian de Ayala 21 His book 22 Velazquez less of a devotional painter than other Spaniards 22 CHAPTER II. Seville in 1600 23 Its learned men, poets, and painters 24 Dukeof Alcala 25 Birth of Velazquez, 1599 ^5 CONTENTS. XI PAOB His parents 26 Boyhood 27 Enters the school of Francisco Herrera 27 Removes to that of Francisco Pacheco 28 Literary works of Pacheco 32 Velazquez's method of study 33, 34 El Aguador de Sevilla 35 Other early works 36 * Adoration of the Shepherds' 37 He imitates Ribera 37 His admiration for Luis Tristan 38 His marriage to J nana Pacheco 39 His family picture 40 His reading 41 He visits Madrid, 1622 43 Don Juan Fonseca 43 Portrait of Gongora 44 CHAPTER in. Velazquez' s second j ourney to Madrid, 1623 45 He paints the portrait of Fonseca, and obtains the notice of the king 45 Character of Philip IV 46, 47 His literary tastes, and literary courtiers 48,49 His dramatic writings and acting 49 His skill in drawing . 50 His love of the fine arts 51 His reception of Rubens 52 He wishes to found an academy at Madrid 53> 54 Xll CONTENTS. PAGE His architectural works 55 The Pantheon of the Escorial 55 His collection of pictures 56 Prices paid for pictures 57, 58 Pictures presented to him 59 His love of sculpture, and collection of marbles, bronzes, and casts 59, 60 His portraits, and his fondness for being painted... 60, 61 His imperturbable gravity 61 Proof of it given in the bull-ring 63 Superstition by which his demeanour was accounted for 64 Various opinions on his personal appearance 65 Infant Don Carlos 66 Cardinal-infant Don Fernando (^6 Queen Isabella de Bourbon 68 Picture of her arrival in Spain 68 Gaspar de Guzman, count-duke of Olivares 70 His library ; and his magnificence 71 His patronage of art 72 The court of Philip IV., and its collectors and patrons of art 73 Admiral of Castille 73 Prince of Esquilache 73 Marquess of Leganes and count of Monterey 73 Don Juan de Espina 74 Duke of Alba, &c 74 Duke of Alcaic 75 Don Juan Fonsjgca 75 Don Juan de Juaregui 75 Don Geronimo Fures 77 Velazquez taken into the king's service, 6th April, 1623 78 CONTENTS. XIU PAGE Charles, priace of Wales, at Madrid 78 Effect of his visit on his subsequent tastes 80 His eagerness as a collector 80 Velazquez begins his portrait 82 Note ou the picture and pamphlets of Mr. Snare ... 82 85 Velazquez's equestrian portrait of Philip IV 85 Its great success 86 Pacheco's honest pride 87 His sonnet to Velazquez 88 Poem by Villanueva in praise of the portrait 89 Velazquez named painter in ordinary to the king, 31st Oct., 1623 90 His portraits of the king and the cardinal-infant, in shooting costume 90 Second equestrian portrait of the king 91 Los Borrachos 92 The sketch of it at Heytesbury -house 94 CHAPTER IV. Expulsion of the Moriscos by Philip III., proposed by the king as a subject for a pictorial competition... 95, 96 Vincencio Carducho 96 98 Eugenio Caxes 98 Angelo Nardi 99 Giov. Batt. Crescenzi 100 Fr. Juan Baut. Mayno 100 Velazquez gains the prize lor His picture described loi Favours bestowed on him by the King 103 XIV CONTENTS FAGB Rubens visits Madrid, 1628 103 His friendship with Velazquez 104 His diplomatic and artistic occupations 1 04, 1 05 His opinion of Philip IV 105 His copies of pictures by Titian, and his various works painted in Spain 106,107 CHAPTER V. Velazquez sails for Italy, Aug., 1629 108 Lands at Venice 108 State of painting there 109 Velazquez goes to Ferrara no Thence to Bologna iri And Rome j 1 2 Pope Urban VIII 113 He offers Velazquez apartments in the Vatican 114 Velazquez studies there 114 State of art at Rome 114, 115 Velazquez at the Villa-Medici 116 He is attacked by fever 117 Is taken into the house of Monterey, the Spanish am- bassador 117 The Forge of Vulcan 118 Joseph's Coat 119 122 Velazquez at Naples 122 State of art there 122 Velazquez returns to Spain, 1631 123 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER VI. PAGB Reception of Velazquez by the King and Olivares 124 Portraits of the infant Don Balthazar Carlos 125 Tacca employed to make a bronze statue 125 Model by Montafles, and portrait by Velazquez sent to assist him 125 Statue placed in the garden of Buenretiro 125 127 Velazquez paints equestrian pictures of Philip III. and queen Margaret 127 Equestrian and other portraits of Olivares 128 130 Portrait of the duke of Modena 130 The Crucifixion of the nunnery of San Placido 131 Portrait of admiral Pulido Pareja, and anecdote 132 135 Dwarfs of Philip IV ^35 137 Revolt of Portugal and Catalonia 137 Velazquez attends the court to Aragon in 1642 137 The gardens of Aranjuez 137 140 Philip IV. at Cuenca, Molina, and Zaragoza 140 Disgrace of Olivares . 141 His bastard son Julianillo 141 Velazquez's portrait of Julianillo 142 His last portrait of Olivares 143 Olivares in exile 144 Velazquez visits him 145 Velazquez accompanies the king to Aragon in 1643, and 1644 145 Siege of Lerida 146 Death of queen Isabella 146 Her equestrian portrait by Velazquez 147 Portraits of the infant Balthazar Carlos on his pony andonfoot 147, 148 XVI CONTENTS. PAGE The Surrender of Breda 148, 149 Unsuccessful portrait of the king 150 Portraits of Quevedo, cardinal Borja, &c 150, 151 CHAPTER YII. Velazquez is sent on an artistic mission to Italy in Nov., 1648 152 Lands at Genoa in Feb., 1649 153 State of art there 153 Velazquez at Milan, Padua, Venice, and Bologna 154 At Modena 155 At Parma and Florence 156 At Naples and Rome 157 Pope Innocent X 157 Velazquez paints his portrait 158 And that of his own servant Pareja 159 State of society at Rome 160 Marco Boschini's poetical record of Velazquez's visit and opinions 161, 162 Velazquez is recalled to Madrid in 165T 163 CHAPTER VIII. Velazquez is appointed Aposentador-mayor to the king 164 The new queen Mariana 165 Christening of the infanta Maria Margarita 1 66 Royal bull feast 167 169 CONTENTS. XVU PAGB Velazquez employed in arranging the royal galleries ... 170 His favour with the king 170 Las Meniiias, 1656 17T 174 Tradition of the cross of Santiago painted on the breast of Velazquez's portrait by the king 174 Portraits of queen Mariana 175 And the infanta Maria Margaret 176 Velazquez arranges and catalogues the pictures at the Escorial 177, 178 Marechal duke of Grammont at Madrid 178 Velazquez admitted of the order of Santiago 179 Meeting of the courts of Spain and France in 1660 ... 180 The Isle of Pheasants in the Bidasoa 180 182 Velazquez sent to prepare the pavilions 182, 183 Their decorations 184 The journey of Philip IV. and the infanta to the frontier 185 187 Ceremonies and festivities of her marriage to Louis XIV 187 192 Philip IV. returns home 192 Burgos, Valladolid, Madrid 193, 194 CHAPTER IX. Report of the death of Velazquez 195 His last illness ; will and death 196 His funeral 197 His epitaph by Alfaro 198 Death of his wife 199 XVlll CONTENTS. PAGE His personal character 201 204 His portraits 204 Notices of some of his chief works; Las Hilanderas 205 St. Anthony and St. Paul 205 208 Coronation of the Virgin 208 St. Francis Borgia 208 211 The Dead Orlando 211 The Place-hunter 212 Portraits of Alonso Cano, &c 213 The alcalde Ronquillo, &c 213 The Boar-hunt 214 217 Note on the restorations of the Boar-hunt 217 Landscapes by Velazquez 218 220 His variety of power 220 His religious pictures 220 222 His Venus 223 Pictures of national dances of Spain 224 Portraits 225 Animals 225 Quevedo's verses in praise of Velazquez 226 CHAPTER X. Works of Velazquez rare out of the royal gallery of Spain 227, 228 Prices for which they have been sold 229 Scholars of Velazquez : Juan de Pareja 229 233 Juan Bautista del Mazo Martinez 2 34 2 36 CONTENTS. XIX CATALOGUE OF PRINTS AFTER WORKS OF VELAZQUEZ. FAeB Sacred Subjects 239 Historical, Mythological, and fancy compositions and figures 241 Portraits and studies 245 Landscapes, Architectural and Hunting pieces 254 Doubtful and spurious prints 255 ,... ,VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. and the extinction of the Moorish power, the Spaniard had little temptation or opportunity to cultivate the arts of peace and acquire the refine- ments of civilization. The early commercial and political relations between Aragon and Italy in- troduced some taste for painting at Barcelona and Zaragoza, at a time when it was hardly known in other parts of the Iberian peninsula. The names of a few painters, apparently native Spaniards, have been found in the monastic re- cords of the fourteenth century. King John II. of Castille (1407 1454), who loved poetry and music, and the society of his minstrels and men of letters, entertained at his gay court two foreign paintsrs Dello of Florence, and Rogel of Flanders. But of the three great schools of Spanish painting, those of Andalusia, Castille, and Va- lencia, none can be Batd^n5'iiav^^a3~a definite existence before the middle of the fifteenth century. Juan Sanchez de Castro, the founder of the first, is supposed to have flourished at Seville from 1454 to 1516. Antonio Rincon, who received the cross of Santiago from Isabella the Catholic about 1500, is the reputed father of the school of Castille. Valencia owes its school to two Italians, named Neapoli and Aregio, who l] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 3 painted for the cathedral in 1506, and who were followed, at a long interval, by one Nicolas Falco, The artists who issued from these schools in the sixteenth century, and who still deserve to be had in honour and remembrance, are by no means numerous. Although Isabella the Ca- tholic had a Castillian for her court painter, her grandson, the emperor Charles Y., who loved art with so much fervour and discernment, is not recorded to have found a Spaniard who could use the pencil in a manner worthy of his em- ployment and patronage. Seville, however, boasted of her Luis de Yargas and Juan Yillegas Marmoleja. The first, and by far the best of these artists, studied in the schools of Rome, and painted somewhat in the style of Perino del Yaga. The second seems to have rather affected Flemish models, and his dryer and harder compo- sitions resemble, at a humble distance, those of Hemling. Pablo de Cespedes, a canon of Cor- dova, and long settled at Rome, enjoyed an artistic reputation which his few existing pic- tures by no means justify, and deserves remem- brance less as a painter than as author of a poem on painting, and some notices of the art, which were the first writings of that kind in Castillian. B 2 i VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. Luis Morales, called the Divine Morales, although living at Badajoz, belongs, perhaps, to the number of Andalusian masters. His pictures of the most touching passages of the history of Our Lord and the Virgin, are no less remarkable for their power of expression, and for their deep religious sentiment, than for their vigour of colouring and careful technical excellence. These merits also belonged, in a very high degree, to Vicente Juan Macip, commonly called Juan de Joanes, the chief painter of Valencia. His vast superiority to any other known Valen- cian master of earlier date, renders it probable that he studied in Italy. But it would be diffi- cult to mention any Italian painter whose style exercised such an influence on his mind as to be traced in his works. In elevation of cha- racter, some of his heads of the Saviour have rarely been equalled, and seldom surpassed. Affecting an antique severity of design, he delighted in rich colouring, in red and bright mulberry tones, and in the gorgeousness of gilded halos and backgrounds. Castille, during the sixteenth century, was more affluent of considerable painters than either Andalusia or Valencia. By Fernando Gallegos (who flourished about 1550) the rich shrines of I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 5 Salamanca were adorned with pictures that would not have been unworthy of the best masters of Bruxelles and Bruges. Archiepis- copal Toledo boasted of her Alonso Berrug\iete (circa 1480 1561), an artist of the highest order, who "had studied in the school, or at least had made himself familiar with the works, of Michael Angelo, at Rome. As an architect, he was never excelled in that sumptuous style, called in Spain the plateresque or goldsmith's, and in the rest of Europe, the style of the Renaissance. ' Some of his fa9ades, still existing at Salamanca, covered with rich and fanciful decoration, with wreaths, birds, grotesque masks, and arabesque tracery, designed with the most graceful ease, and carved in the warm creamy stone with the happiest delicacy and boldness, do not yield in beauty to the finest works of the same period that ever grew beneath French or Italian chisels at Pavia or Fontainebleau. In sculpture he has left some noble works, both in wood and marble ; and his pictures, now very rare, although heavy and poor in colouring, have so much grandeur of design that they alone might rescue his name from oblivion. To the cloisters and altars of Toledo, Luis de Carvajal (1534 i6i3)and Bias de Prado (who died about 1577) contributed 6 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. many works elevated in sentiment, and painted with a freedom and boldness of handling hitherto unknown to Castille ; and hither Domenico Theotocopuli, called El Greco (who flourished from 1577 to 1625), brought from Venice a splendour of colouring which greatly redeemed the careless drawing and extravagant treatment which too often disfigure his pictures. In building the Escorial and decorating his other palaces, Philip II. gave an impulse to the "^ progress of art, the sole benefit which counter- balanced the misery and disasters of his reign. Yet the artists whom he collected around him / were chiefly foreigners, and not the principal artists of their day. Alonso Sanchez Coello, his i court-painter, was, however, a native of the peninsula, and not altogether unworthy of the name given him by the king, of his Portuguese Titian. The portraits of this painter, although hard and timid when compared with those of the greaf Venetian, are finely coloured, and full of life and individuality. His skill and fame were inherited and upheld by his scholar, Juan Pan- toja de la Cruz (1551 1610). Juan Fernandez Navarrete, or El Mudo, as he was called, from his misfortune of being deaf and dumb (1526 1579), was the principal Castillian painter whose I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 7 genius was evoked and employed at the Escorial. Many of the saints, which he painted for its chapels, would have been admired at Yenice, and in his delineation of female beauty, he dis- played a facility and grace such as no native Spaniard had yet attained. Differing widely from each other in style, the Spanish schools of painting are distinguished by a severe devotional character which is common _to_all. During the period of their growth and vigour, it was rarely that a Spanish artist employed his pencil on any secular subject ex- cept portraiture. Unlike the Italian, he is hardly ever to be found in the fields of profane mythology and history. Zion hill and Silca's brook delight him more than Parnassus or Ida, the Xanthus or the Orontes. In the Golden Legend he found his Iliad, and Odyssey, and Art of Love. Many causes combined to produce this severity of style. The long struggle with the Saracens not only discouraged, while it lasted, intellectual culture ; but, even after it had ended in the overthrow of the crescent, left the Castillian, who gloried in the name of ' old Christian,' strongly prejudiced against everything which had not grown up under the shadow of the cross. That 8 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. enthusiasm for classical antiquity, its literature and art, which was first kindled by Petrarch, and soon flamed in all the courts and cloisters of Italy, never communicated ^ itself to the national mind of Spain, or extended beyond the bosoms of a few students in the seats of learning. Even at Alcala and Salamanca, St. Jerome was always more popular than Cicero. In Antonio de Nebrixa, Castille may boast of a scholar, who was worthy of being the contemporary of Valla and Erasmus. But even in cardinal Ximenes, the most munificent patron of learning whom she has ever known, she by no means possessed a Lorenzo or a Leo. To promote and improve the study of theology was the sole end and aim of his literary and scholastic foundations; and for the poetry and philosophy of Greece and Rome he cared no more than he did for that Moorish literature which he consigned to the flames at Granada. His regard for learning, as learning, may be estimated by a remarkable passage in the pre- face to the Polyglot Bible, the noblest monu- ment of his munificence, and one of the most beautiful achievements of the press, where the reader is informed that he will find the Latin version of the blessed Jerome placed between the Septuagint Greek and the original Hebrew I.j VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. V of the Scriptures, like Our Lord crucified between the two thieves.^ If the church was but slightly tinged with classical tastes, the laity had but little taste of any kind. Out of the church and the royal palaces there was nothing that could be called public patronage of art, until the seventeenth century. A few great families, whose chiefe or scions had held Italian governments or commands, were honourably distinguished from the herd of nobles who cared for nothing beyond horses and armour, hounds and falcons. The house of Mendoza, famous in arms, diplomacy, and letters, possessed at Guadalaxara a library which had been commenced before the invention of printing; and their noble palace there gradually became a museum of art. At Alba de Tonnes the duke of Alba, known to fame as the hero of Muhlberg, the scourge of Flanders, and the con- queror of Portugal, likewise displayed his love of the arts of peace. Hither he brought one Tommaso, from Florence, to paint a gallery in fresco ; here he formed a collection of pictures and statues : and here his military exploits were > Biblia Polyglolta Card. Ximenii, 6 toI. fol. Compluti, 15 H, i-P- 3- 10 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. afterwards commemorated in fresco, by order of his son, by Granelo and the younger Castello. This castle, cruelly treated by the wretched Spa- nish architects of the eighteenth century, and the remorseless French invaders of the nine- teenth, is now a mere shell, and used by the adjoining town as a quarry; but long alter the green hill-top, ' its pleasant seat,' shall be marked only by a mound of ruin, it will stand in im- perishable beauty on the fair bank of Tormes La ribera verde y deleytosa Del sacro Tormes diilce y claro rio, ^ in the sweet verse of the Sydney of Castille. At La Abadia, amongst the hills and chesnut woods of Estremadura, the same duke had a seat, once an abbey of the Templars, where he spent the evening of his stormy life in constructing, on the hanging banks of the Anibroz, gardens long famous in Spain. Here Lope de Vega, who wrote his Arcadia at the suggestion of Alba, frequently paced the terraces, an honoured guest of the retired warrior ; and he has described in verse the beauties of this now ruined pleasance, the groves and long-drawn alleys, the myrtles shorn * Garcilasso dela Vega: Egloga ii. Obras 24, Madrid: 1817, p. 62. I.J VEI^iZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 11 into a thousand fantastic shapes, the arches and pavilions, and the fountains and statuary- wrought by the Florentine Camilani, ' wherein all Ovid stood translated into bronze and mar- ble. '^ At El Viso, on the Manchegan side of the Sierra Morena, the stout admiral Gran marques de Santa Cruz, famoso Bazan, Achilles siempre victorioso, reared a' magnificent palace from designs by Castello of Bergamo, where a variety of clas- sical histories, as well as his own naval exploits against the Turks and the Portu- guese, formed the subjects of many good fi-escoes by Cesare Arbasia and the brothers Perola of Almagro. The famous secretary An- tonio Perez, who loved luxury of all kinds, and was a scholar and man of taste, was another personage of the court of Philip II. who emulated the refined splendours of the Orsini and Colonna. His spacious house at Madrid, pulled down after his disgrace, and his suburban villa, were full of choice pictures and marbles, mosaic pavements, cabinets, and rich arras. ^ Descripcion del Abadia, jardin del duque de Alba. Ohras sueltas, xxi. torn. 4. Madrid. 1776 9. Tom. iv. p. 355- 12 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. Zaragoza boasted of a Mecsenas in the chief of the half-royal house of Aragon, the duke of Yillahermosa, who brought from Italy a scholar of Titian, one Paolo Esquarte, to decorate his halls with portraits of his ancestors and with illustrations of his family history. At Plasencia, the historian Luis de Avila, grand-commander of Alcantara, caused similar works, representing the achievements of his friend and master, the emperor Charles Y., to be executed in his wife's noble palace of Mirabel. The castle of the Silvas at Buitrago, the Sandovals at Denia, the Beltrans de la Cueva at Cuellar, and the Pimentels at Benevente, and the town- palaces of the Ye- lascos at Burgos, and the Riberas at Seville, were also rich in adornments and trophies of the chisels and the pencils of Italy. But these examples, if they are sufficient to prove that the Spanish nobility was not alto- gether Boeotian, cannot be said to have done much towards the development of the artistic genius of the nation. The more tasteful laymen, then as now, were rather collectors of objects of art than employers of artists. The true patron was unquestionably the supreme and munificent church. Each of her great cathedrals, Toledo, Zaragoza, Salamanca, Segovia, Yalencia, Granada, I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 13 Seville, each of her great abbeys, not only those in the cities, but those planted in rural vegas and remote sierras, Lupiana, Guadalupe, El Paular, St. Martin de la CogoUa, was a centre and semi- nary of local art. Architects and sculptors, painters of fresco, canvas, vellum, and glass, gold- smiths, and artists in brass and iron, there found ready hospitality, generous patronage, and con- stant employment. In vigorous growth the great cathedral or religious house of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, resembled the allegorical vine of the Psalmist, which sent out her boughs to the sea and her branches to the river. Its hereditary revenues and the tributes of the pious afforded funds, not easily exhausted, for purposes of archi- tecture and decoration ; for adding a new chapel or a more spacious sacristy, and storing them with pictures and plate ; or for covering the walls of a new cloister with a pictorial biography of St. Dominic or St. Bennet. The rivalry of ecclesi- astical corporations and monastic orders, in the * gay religion, full of pomp and gold,' ensured a liberal expenditure, even among churchmen who were inspired with no honourable zeal to ennoble and beautify the temple of God com- mitted to their keeping. The historians of the 14 VELAZQUEZ AND niS WORKS. [CH. various miraculous images of Our Lady of Atocha,^ or Guadalupe,^ or Sopetraii,^ while they enlarge on the sanctity and the wondrous powers of their respective subjects, which ought to ' melt hearts of adamant and move bowels of brass,' dilate with hardly less unction and pride on the splen- dour of their sacred palaces, and the plate and jewels which blaze around their time-honoured shrines. The wealth of the fraternity or the chapter might therefore be spent with more or less generosity, and more or less taste, but to one artistic purpose or another a considerable portion of it was sure to be devoted. And to their quiet halls no prodigal heir ever brought ruin and desolation, scattering the slowly accumulated treasures of ages, and turning a fair inheritance into husks. There was hardly a Spanish painter, therefore, who had not passed some portion of his life many of them passed their w^hole lives in con- vents and cathedrals. The painter was, in truth, not the least popular or important of the servants ^ G. de Quintana: Hist, de Na. Sena, dcfitocha. 4. Madrid: 1637. 2 Fr. G. de Talavera : Hist, de Na. Sa. de Guadalupe. 4. Toledo: 1597. 3 Fr. B. de Arce y Fr. A. de Heredia : Hist, de N. S. de Sopetran. 4. Madrid: 1676. I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 15 of the church. His business was not merely to decorate and delight to minister to the lust of the eye, and the pride of life but to instruct the ignorant, reform the vicious, and guide to the paths of piety and virtue. From him the young and the poor learned much of the little they knew of gospel histoiy, and of the touching stories of the saints whom they were taught from the cradle to adore. The full importance of his functions it is difficult, perhaps, for a Protestant to appreciate. Here the character and ancient habits of our people have rendered it possible, even for the masses to dispense with symbols, to attach themselves warmly to theological dogmas, and to feel enthusiasm about doctrinal abstractions. But to the simple Catholic of Spain these things were, as they still are, unintelli- gible ; and the ideas which came home to him at all were only such as could be embodied in the pictures or carvings of the shrine at which he worshipped. The magnitude of the painter's mission was therefore felt and avowed, both by himself and others. ' The chief end of the works of Christian art,' says the painter Pacheco; ' is to persuade men to piety, and to bring them to God.' ^ * For the learned and lettered,' says ^F. Pacheco: Arte de la Pintura^ 4". Sevilla: 1649, P- M3- 16 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. another author of the same age, ' written know- ledge may suffice ; but for the ignorant, what master is like painting 1 They may read their duty in a picture, when they cannot search for it in books.'' The painter was in truth the best and most popular of preachers ; and the standing homilies with which he clothed the walls of church and cloister, were more univer- sally attractive and acceptable than the sermons in which the Jesuit glozed or the Dominican thundered from the pulpit. He knew and felt the dignity of his task, and frequently aj^plied himself to it with all the zealous fervour of the holiest friar. Like Fra Angelico, Macip (or Joanes, as he is generally called) was wont to prepare him- self for a new work by means of prayer, fasting, and the Eucharist. To these preparatives Luis de Yargas added the occasional discipline of the scourge, and he kept by his bedside a coffin in which he would often lie down to meditate on death. Sometimes the pious painter assumed the clerical robe ; sometimes the priest or friar, who loved art, taught himself at leisure hours ^ Juan de Button : Discursos apologeticos en que se defiende la ingenuidad del arte de la Pintura. 4. Madrid : 1626. p. 36. I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 17 to use the pencil. Indeed, there were few re- ligious houses but had possessed, at one time or other, an inmate of some skill as an artist, who had contributed a picture or a carving to the chapel, or a rich pix or chalice to the sacristy. Fray Nicolas Borras filled the church and cloisters of the Jeromites at Gandia with a multitude of compositions, some of which would do no discredit to his master, Joanes. Nicolas Factor, a Franciscan of Valencia, was as well known as a painter of merit, as a man of such sanctity of life as to obtain canonization. The fine genius of El Mudo was discovered, and at first directed by a friar of the Jeromite convent at Estrella. Andres de Leon and Julian Fuente del Saz, monks of the Escurial, were noted for the beauty and delicacy of the illuminations with which they adorned the music book of their sumptuous choir. The Carthusians of Granada and Seville, the Paular, and Scala Dei, were proud of the artistic fame of Cotan, Beren- guer, and Ferrado. Cespedes, the painter poet, was a canon of Cordova ; and Roelas and Cario were prebendaries, the one of Olivares, and the other of Granada. Dealing with the invisible world, and its di- vine, angelic, and glorified beings, the artist was, c 18 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. or believed that he was, an especial object of solicitude to these heavenly personages. The per- fection, or the preservation of his works, was not beneath the care of the very highest of them. The legends of the church, the opinion of the clergy, and the traditions of art, were in this matter agreed, and were sometimes confirmed by modem instances. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, certain Jeromite hermits, who had found their way from Italy to the mountains. of Avila, and who had made their abode in the caves of Guisando, adorned their rock-hewn chapel with a picture of their patron saint. The dampness of the cavern, whose sides ran down with water all the winter, rotted the frame, but respected the picture, which remained at the end of two hundred years as bright and jfresh as if newly painted.^ The sculptor Gaspar Becerra, had thrice failed in carving an image of the Virgin to the mind of queen Isabella of the Peace, and he had nearly relinquished the task in despair; but, in a vision of the night, the Blessed Mary herself appeared to him, and en- joined him to go to work on a log, then burning ^ Joseph de Siguen^a : Historia de la orden de San Geronimo. 2 vols. fol. Madrid : 1600. ii. p. 86. I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 19 on his hearth, which, by her aid, was eventually- fashioned into one of the most famous idols of Madrid, where it wrought many miracles under the name of Our Lady of Solitude. Macip (or Joanes) was less highly favoured; yet his / able picture of the Yirgin, still adored at Va- lencia as La Purisima,^ was painted from minute directions given by the Virgin herself to the Jesuit Martin Alberto. It was a tradition among the Carthusians at Granada, that she had actually honoured the convent with a visit, having appeared in the cell of their pious brother and artist, Sanchez Cotan, and given him a sit- tiqg for her picture on which he happened to be engaged. 2 Miracles were sometimes wrought by pictures and statues, not only during the lifetime of their authors, but even while the pencil or the chisel was still engaged in creating them. A painter, at work in the dome of the chapel of Our Lady of Niev^ when almost dashed to pieces by a ^ In the Annals of the Artists of Spain, p. 358, 1 fell into an error in saying that it was not known what had become of this fine work. It is the principal altar piece in the chapel of the Communion in the church of San Juan del Mercado at Valencia. * Palomino: Vidat de lot pintores y ettatuarios eminentes Espaflolet. fol. Madrid: 1724. p. 391. C 2 20 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. fall through his scaffolding, was immediately re- stored to life and vigour.^ Lope de Yega relates of another painter similarly engaged, that his scaffolding gave way, and fell with a sudden crash, but that he himself, having uttered a mental prayer, remained suspended in mid air, upheld by the arm which he had just painted, and which Our Lady put forth from the wall to his relief. 2 Artists not only enjoyed in purga- tory the aid of the saints whom they had most frequently represented; but even in this world these friendly patrons were supposed sometimes to interfere in their behalf, to extricate them from the consequence of mundane peccadilloes, as the heathen deities interfered in the fortunes of a Homeric battle, to aid and protect their favourite heroes. Besides these causes, which naturally led the Spanish painter to religious subjects, and stamped a religious character on his works, another cause operated to prevent him, even if he were so dis- posed, from indulging in those libertine fancies which employed the pencils of so many of his brethren in Germany and Italy. The Inquisi- ^ Villafafie : Compendio historico de los milagrosos ima- geries, fol. Madrid: 1740. p. 372. * Lope de Vega : Obras, torn. v. p. 66. I.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 21 tion, which, like death, knocked when it pleased at every door, and would be refused admittance at none, which ruled the printing-press with a rod of iron, and even pried into the recesses of the author's desk, was not slow in finding its way to the studio, and asserting its dominion over art. It put forth a decree forbidding the making, ex- posing to sale, or possessing immodest pictures, prints, or sculptures, under pain of excommuni- cation, a fine of 1500 ducats, and a year's exile. Inspectors or censors were likewise appointed by the tribunal, in the principal towns, to see that this decree was obeyed, and to report to the Holy Office any transgression of it that might fall within their notice. Pacheco was named to this post at Seville, in 1 6 1 8, and held it for many years ;^ and Palomino, later in the same century, fulfilled similar functions, which he esteemed an honour, at Madrid. ^ Both of these writers de- vote a considerable portion of their treatises on painting to laying down rules for the orthodox representation of sacred subjects. The code of sacro-pictorial law was first, however, promul- gated in a separate form in Spain by Fray Juan Interian de Ayala, a monk of the order of Mercy, ^ Pacheco: Arte de la Pintura, p. 471. * Palomino : 1 Maseo Pictorico, p. 94. 22 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. I. and a doctor of Salamanca.^ His Latin folio is, as may be supposed, a choice specimen of ponderous and prosy trifling. Several pages are devoted to a disquisition on the true shape of the cross of Calvary ; the question whether one or two angels sat on the stone rolled away from Our Lord's sepulchre, at the Resurrection, is anxiously debated ; and the right of th devil to his pre- scriptive horns and tail is not admitted until after a rigorous examination of the best authorities. The only great Spanish pain1;er who did not find habitual employment in the service of the church, and his ordinary themes in the bible and the calendar, was Yelazquez, whose life I pur- pose to relate. Entering the service of Philip lY. at an early age, he executed most of his works for the royal palaces, painting only on rare occasions a devotional picture for a royal oratory or convent. Yet in his treatment of secular subjects, he maintained the serious air which belongs to the Spanish character, and especially distinguishes the Spanish pencil. ^ Pictor Christianus eruditus. fol. Madrid: 1730. Translated by Dr. L. de Duran, El Pintor Christiano y erudito. 2 vols. 4. Madrid: 1782. ^tOUs^ CHAPTER II. AT the close of the sixteenth century, Seville was the richest city within the wide domi- nions of the Castillian crown. For its ancient Christianity and blessed saints and martyrs, its pleasant situation and climate, its splendid cathe- dral, palaces, and streets, its illustrious families and universal commerce, its great men and lovely women, it had been called by an early historian,^ with more truth than is commonly found in filial panegyric, ' the glory of the Spanish realms.' The waning star of the house of Austria had not as yet affected its fortunes. Although the flags of England and the United Provinces had begun to contest with the castles and lions of Spain the sovereignty of the western ocean, large vessels still ascended the Guadal- quivir to unload their rich freights beneath the 1 Alonso Morgado: HUtoria de SevUla. fol. Seville; 1587. P- 159- 24 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. golden tower of Csesar, and wealthy merchants still congregated beneath the grand arcades of Herrera's exchange. In this atmosphere of trade the church was, as usual, the guardian of taste V and intellectual culture. In the cathedral, the poet Francisco de Rioja, and the learned Fran- cisco Pacheco the elder, filled canons' stalls ; and there the priest antiquary, Hodrigo Caro, histo- rian of Seville and Utrera, might be seen de- ciphering the ancient inscriptions, or turning over the folios in the fine library bequeathed to the chapter by the son of Columbus. At the Jesuits' college, the erudite Gaspar Zamora, and Martin de Roa, the chronicler and hagiologist of Cordova, Xeres, and Ecija, lectured in the learned halls, or officiated at sumptuous altars, newly enriched with pictures by Roelas and Herrera, and with sculpture by Montanes. The poet Gongora, now at the height of his reputa- tion, being a canon of Cordova, was a frequent visitor at Seville. The house of the painter Francisco Pacheco was the general resort of _. arti^s and men of letters, who met there to dis- cuss the news of the day, and the last pro- ductions of the studios, or of the presses of Gamarra or Yejerano. The cultivated society of the city also assembled in the halls and gar- .iftl^ II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 25 dens of the tasteful duke of Alcala. This noble- man, Fernando de Ribera, head of a house in which munificence and valour were hereditary, was representative of the marquess of Tarifa, whose pilgrimage to the Holy Land had been made famous by the poet Juan de Enzina. He kept his state in a mansion, still known as the house of Pilate, having been built by his pilgrim ancestor, after the plan, it is said, of the house so called at Jerusalem. Here he had amassed a fine collection of pictures and works of art, and filled the porticos towards the garden with antique statues, brought some from Rome and others from the neighbouring ruins of Italica ; and he had likewise formed a choice cabinet of coins, and a large library, which included that of ~ Ambrosio Morales, and was especially rich in manuscripts relating to the antiquities of Spain. ^ Himself an amateur painter of some skill, as well as a scholar, a soldier, and a statesman, the duke here employed many of the best Andalu- ' sian artists, and reigned the Mecsenas of arts and letters. Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez, or, as he is more commonly but incorrectly called, Diego Velazquez de Silva, was bom at Sftvillp!, ^ n i ^r^cf the same year in which Vandyck saw the 26 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. light at i^Aitwerp and on the 1 6th of June he was baptised in the parish church of San Pedro. Both his parents were of gentle blood. Juan Rodriguez de Silva, his father, was descended from the great Portuguese house which traced its pedigree up to the kings of Alba Longa ; and his mother, Geronima Velazquez, by whose name according to the frequent usage of Andalusia her son came to be known,i was bom of a noble family of Seville. To the poverty of his pater- nal grandfather, who, inheriting nothing from his illustrious ancestors but an historical name, crossed the Guadiana to seek his fortune at Seville, Spain owes her greatest painter ; as she owes one of her most graceful poets to the bright eyes of the Castillian Marfida, who lured Jorge de Montemayor from his native land and lan- guage of Portugal. 2 The Mher of the artist, being settled at Seville, acquired a decent com- petence by following the legal profe^ion. He and his wife Geronima bestowed great care on the training of their son Diego ; betimes instil- 1 So the poet Gongora y Argote, in forming his own appellation, gave the name of his mother the precedence. Nic, Antonio; Bib. Hisp. tom. ii. p. 7g. 2 Bouterwek's iSpan. and Port. Literature; translated hy Ross. vol. i. p. 217. II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 27 ling into his young mind the principles of virtue and 'the milk of the fear of God.'* They likewise gave him the best sch olastic education that Seville afforded, in the course of which he showed an excellent capacity, and acquired a competent knowledge of lan- guages and philosophy. But, like Nicolas Pous- 8in,2 he was still more diligent in drawing on his grammare and copy-books than in using them for their legitimate purpose ; and the efforts of his school-boy pencil evincing considerable talent as well as a strong predilection for art, his father was content that he should embrace the profes- sion of a painter. Francisco Herrera the elder had the honour of becoming the first master of Yelazquez. This artist had studied under Luis Fernandez, a painter of traditional reputation, none of whose works are now known to exist, but whose school deserves remembrance as the nursery of those who taught Yelazquez, Cano, and Murillo. Herrera was the fii*st who threw off the timid conventional style hitherto in vogue, and adopted * Palomino, torn. iii. p. 479. Memoirs of N. Poussin, by Maria Qraham (afterwards lady Callcott), 8vo. London: 1820, p. 7. 28 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. that frpft arifl hn\f\ marmpr wTiipVi sOOn became characteristic of the painting of Seville. Sketch- ing with burnt sticks, and laying on his colours with brushes of unusual length and volume, he produced works of great vigour and effect, startling by their novelty to those whom Yargas and Villegas had accustomed to elaborate mani- pulation and delicate finish. His skill and dili- gence soon gained him fame and employment ; and the rough heads and broad and brilliant draperies of his saints were hung in the chapels of St. Bona venture, the cloisters of St. Francis, and the chambers of the archiepiscopal palace. Scholars flocked to his studio, but they were frequently driven from it by the violence of his temper and the severity of the corporal chas- tisement with which be enforced his artistic precepts. He was thus often left without either pupil or assistant, and compelled to call in the aid of his maid-servant when orders pressed. Velazquez was amongst those who soon grew weary of his tyranny. Having studied his methods of working, which a kindred genius soon enabled him to understand and acquire, he removed to a more peaceful and orderly school. His new instructor, Francisco Pacheco, was, as a man and as an artist, the very opposite of II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 29 Herrera. Bom at Seville in 157 1, he belonged to a respectable branch of a noble family, which bears one of the oldest names in the Peninsula, and was early illustrious in arms and letters. His uncle, likewise Francisco Pacheco, was a canon of Seville, and long supreme in its me- tropolitan church in matters of scholarship and taste, being employed to write all the Latin inscriptions in which the dean and chapter com- memorated their magnificence, and to select the groups and bas-reliefs with which Juan d'Arphe adorned the silver custodia, or sacramental shrine, a remai-kable monument of the age when goldsmiths were architects who built with the ore of Mexico and Peru. Besides writing Latin verses,^ highly approved by his contemporaries, the canon edited the Flos Sanctorum, illustrated with fine woodcuts, which appeared at Seville in 1580, and he planned, but did not live to complete, an eccle- siastical history of the city of St. Isidore. ^ From this learned relative it is probable that the ^ Nic. Antonio : Bibliotheca Sispana Nota. 2 torn. fol. Komse: 1672. i. p. 348. * Ortiz, de Zufliga : Annales de Sevilla. fol. Madrid: 1677, p. 596. He died in 1599, ^^^ *s buried in the cathedral in front of the chapel *de la Antigua.' I 80 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. younger Pacheco imbibed the love of books and literary society which he displayed during a long and busy life. In painting, he, like Herrera, studied under Luis Fernandez, and he appears to have obeyed the precepts which he there received, long after other artists had dis- carded them. His first recorded works were banners for the fleet of New Spain, whereon, with crimson damask for canvas, he painted Santiago on his charger, the royal arms, and various appropriate devices, which went forth to the battle and the breeze in 1594. In 1598 he executed a great portion of the paintings in dis- temper for the great funeral pomp with which the chapter honoured the evil memory of Philip II. Decorative painting having thus engaged his attention, he became noted for his skill in colouring the flesh and drapery of sculpture in wood, and painted many statues for his friends, Nuiiez Delgado and Martinez Montanes, and added to their bas-reliefs architectural and land- scape backgrounds. By the friars of Mercy he was employed to paint the life of St. Raymond for their noble convent, in, 1 600 ; and three years later he adorned a cabinet of the duke of Alcala's house, the Casa de Pilatos, with the fall of Daedalus and Icarus. In 16 11 he made a jour- II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 31 ney to Madrid, the Escorial, and Toledo, where he spent some months in examining the collec- tions of art, and formed friendly relations with EI Greco, Carducho, and other leading artists. On his return to Seville his studio became one of the most popular schools of painting in the city. Few ar- tists were more diligent or painstaking. None of his works, he relates, were executed until he had made several sketches of the design, and accurate studies of the heads and more important parts of the figures from living models, and his draperies were always painted from the lay figure. Rafael had early been chosen by him as the object of his imitation. But his efforts in that path can- not be said to have been successful. His draw- ing is generally correct, and his figures are seldom without grace; but his compositions are cold, spiritless, and common-place. Except a reflected elegance, his pictures have little in common with the works of Rafael but a cer- tain poverty of colour. The 'Last Judg- ment,' an immense composition, painted for the nuns of St. Isabel in 1612, was esteemed by himself as the greatest effort of his pencil. By other and perhaps better judges, the ' St. Michael overthrowing Satan,' which was hung in the church of St. Albert, was held to be the 32 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. most favourable specimen of liis powers. Chosen in 1618 a familiar of the Inquisition, he was also appointed by that tribunal inspector of pictures.^ Amongst his first literary undertakings was a new edition of the poems of his friend and fellow-citizen Fernando de Herrera, to which he contributed an eulogistic sonnet, and a por- trait, far less flattering, poorly engraved, from his drawing, by Pedro Perret.^ A short essay, in which he discussed the relative merits of painting and sculpture, and awarded the palm to the art which he himself professed; several polemical tracts of portentous dulness, and some epigrams, praised by critics of a later day for their sprightly ease, preceded the work on which his fame chiefly rests : a Treatise on Painting, _ published in 1649; ^^^ ^ book of great rarity, long the manual of the Spanish studios, and still valuable for its minute accounts of the methods of working then practised, and for its occasional notices of contemporary artists.^ Velazquez entered Pacheco's studio with a determination to learn all that was taught there ; and Pacheco, on his part, willingly taught 2 Versos de Fernando de Eerrera, 4. Sevilla: 1619. 3 Page 15. II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS W)RKS. 33 him all that he himself knew. But the scholar seems speedily to have discovered that he had quitted a prflj>tic g1 pain t.p.r for a man of rules and precep ts ; and that, if the one knew more about the artistic usages of Cos and Ephesus, Florence and Rome, the other had far more skill in representing on his canvas men and women as they lived and moved at Seville. He discovered, also, that rifltnr^ hpraplf ia tJTP! artistlfl-Jaeat tea,cher, and ^dustry his surest guide^to perfe ction. He very early resolved neither to sketch nor to colour any object with- out having the thing itself before him. That he might have a model, of the human countenance ever at hand, * he kept,' says Pacheco,^ ' a peasant lad, as an apprentice, who served him for a study in different actions and postures some- times crying, sometimes laughing till he had grappled with every difficulty of expression; and from him he executed an infinite variety of heads in charcoal and chalk on blue paper, by which he arrived at certainty in taking like- nesses.' He thus laid the foundation of the inimitable ease and perfection with which he afterwards painted heads, in which his excel- ^ Arte de la Pintura, p. loi. D 34 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. lence was admitted even by his detractors, in a precious piece of criticism often in their mouths that he could paint a head, and nothing else. To this, when it was once repeated to him by Philip lY., he replied, with the noble humility of a great master and the good humour which most effectually turns the edge of sarcasm, that they flattered him, for he knew nobody of whom it could be said that he painted a head thoroughly well. ing, h e_devoted himse lf, for a whilejto thg^tudy of animals and still_life, painting all sorts of objects rich in tones and tints, and simple in configuration, such as pieces of plate, metal and earthen pots and pans, and other domestic uten- sils, and the birds, fish, and fruits, which the woods and waters around Seville so lavishly supply to its markets. These ' bodegones' of his early days are worthy of the best pencils of Flanders, and now are no less rare than excellent. The Museum of Yalladolid possesses a fine one, enriched with two figures of life size,^ keeping watch over a multitude of culinary utensils, and ^ In the great hall, No. 6 ; Compendio Historio de Valladolid. sm. 8vo. Yalladolid 1843, P- 47- II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 35 a picturesque heap of melons and those other vegetables for which the chosen people, too mindful of Egypt, murmured in the wilderness of Sinai. At Seville, Don Aniceto Bravo has, or had, a large picture of the same character, but without figures, displaying much more of the manner of the master ; and Don Juan de Go- vantes* possesses a small and admirably-painted study of a 'cardo,' cut ready for the table. The next step of Yelazquez, in his progress of self-instruction, was the study of subjects of low life, found in such rich and picturesque variety in the streets and on the waysides of Andalusia, to which he brought a fine sense of humour and discrimination of character. To this epoch is referred his celebrated picture of the ' Water- canier ^ILSeyille,' stolen by king Joseph, in his flight from the palace of Madrid, and taken in his carriage, with a quantity of the Bourbon plate and jewels, at the rout of Vittoria. Pre- sented by king Ferdinand VII. to the great English captain who placed him on his heredi- tary throne, it is now one of the Wellington trophies at Apsley house. It is a composition * The collection of this gentleman, in his house, Calle de A. B. C, No. 17, contains many excellent specimens of the Spanish and old German masters. D 2 36 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. of three figures ; a sunburnt wayworn seller of water, dressed in a tattered brown jerkin, with his huge earthen jars, and two lads, one of whom receives a sparkling glass of the pure element, whilst his companion quencher his thirst from a pipkin.^ The execution of the heads and all the details is perfect : and the ragged trader, dis- pensing a few maravedis' worth of his simple stock, maintains, during the transaction, a grave dignity of deportment highly Spanish and cha- racteristic, and worthy of an emperor pledging a great vassal in Tokay. This excellent work was finely engraved at Madrid, before the war, by Bias Ametler, under the direction of Car- mona. Palomino enumerates several other pic- tures, by Velazquez, of similar familiar subjects, which have either perished or been forgotten. One of these represented two beggars, sitting at a humble board, spread with earthen pots, bread, and oranges ; another, a ragged urchin, with jar in his hand, keeping watch over a chafing-dish, ^ Cumberland, who saw the picture at Buenretiro (Anec- dotes, vol. ii. p. 6), with his usual inaccuracy, describes the aguador's tattered garments as * discovering through its rents naked parts of his body,' and praises 'the precision in muscular anatomy' which it displays. The rents, now at least, discover something less usual with Spanish water- carriers, some clean linen. II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS, 37 on which is a pipkin of smoking broth ; and a third, a boy, seated amongst pots and vegetables, counting some money, whilst his dog, behind, licks his lips at an adjacent dish of fish, in which the canvas was signed with the artist's name.^ Whilst he was thus rivalling the painters of Holland in acmiraie_studies-o-eonmion^iieuand * manners , and acquiring in the delineation of rags that skill which he was soon to exercise on the purple and fine linen of royalty, an importa- tion into Seville, of pictures by foreign masters, and by Spaniards of the other schools, drew his attention to new models of imitation, and to a new class of subjects. His ' Adoration of the Shepherds,' a large composition of nine figures, once in the collection of the count of Aguila, at Seville, afterwards in the Spanish gallery of the Louvre, and now in our National ^alleiy in^Lon.- don, displays his admiration for the works of Ribera, for it is not only painted in close imitation of that master's style, but is, by an able critic, held to be a mere copy of one of his pictures. ^ The ^ Palomino: torn. iii. p. 480. * Penny Cyclopcedia, vol. xxvi. p. 189; article Velaz- quez. 38 VELAZQUEZ AXD HIS WORKS. [cH. execution has much of the power of Spagnoletto ; the models, too, are taken from the vulgar life which that master loved to paint ; and some of them, the kneeling shepherds, for instance, and the old woman behind them, may have been >y gipsies of Triana. The Virgin, a simple peasant maiden, with little of beauty or dignity, is fiill of truth and nature ; and the infant in the manger, diflfusing the miraculous light of the Divine presence, is painted with admirable delicacy of touch and brilliancy of effect. The votive lambs in the foreground are careful studies from nature. It is a picture of great interest, and the most important of the earlier works of the author. But of all those painters with whose works Velazquez now became acquainted, it was Luis j Tristan of Toledo who produced the most lasting impression on his mind. The favourite scholar of El Greco, Tristan had formed for himself a style in which the sober tones of Castille were blended with the brighter colouring of Venice. Could the individual powers of master and scholar have been united, a new artist, superior to both, would have been given to Spain. But, though a better colourist than El Greco^ Tristan was not to be compared with him for originality II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 39 of conception or for vigour of execution. His works may have enabled Velazquez to add to his palette, some brilliant tints which he applied to his canvas with a still more skilful and effective pencil. Beyond this, it is difficult to understand what he can have learned from the Toledan. Nevertheless, he always confessed obligations to Tristan, and spoke of him with a warmth of admiration which his existing works do not jus- tify, and scarcely explain. In spite of his extended knowledge of other masters, Velazquez still remained constant in his prpfftr^T1(>fi nf t.^p commnn anrl iln^ f^nt,nal tn fjift elevated and ideal, partly from the bent of his taste, and pai-tly because he thought that in that direction there remained greater room for dis- tinction. To those who proposed to him a loftier flight, and suggested Rafael as a nobler model, he used to reply that he would rather be the first of vulgar than the second of refined painters. After a long and laborious course of study, Velazquez became the son-in-law of his master. *At the end of five years of education and teaching,' says Pacheco, * I married him to my daughter, (Doiia Juana,) moved thereto by his virtue, honour, and excellent qualities, and the 40 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. hopefulness of his great natural genius.'^ The vio- lence of Herrera had driven him from the school of an able master ; perhaps the soft influence of Pacheco's daughter kept him a willing scholar in a studio, inferior in the artistic instruction that it afforded to others which he might have chosen, that of Roelas, for example, or that of Juan de Castillo. As in the case of Ribalta, love may- have, in some sort, helped to make him a painter, by spurring his industry, and teaching him the great lesson of self-reliance. Little is known of the woman of his choice, beyond the fact of her marriage. Her portrait, in the queen of Spain's gallery,^ painted by her husband, represents her as dark of complexion, with a good profile, but not remarkable for beauty of feature. From the family picture in the Imperial gallery, at Yienna,^ , in which they are seen surrounded by their off"- spring, she appears to have borne him at least 'six children, four boys and two girls. Of thej.r domes- tic life, with its joys and sorrows, nothing has been recorded ; but there is no reason to believe that Juana Pacheco proved herself in any respect ^ Pacheco: Arte de la Pintura, p. loi. 2 Catalogo de los cuadros del real Museo de S. M. 8vo. Madrid: 1845, No. 320. 3 Verzeichniss : Niederl. Sch, Zim. vi. No. 47, p. 169. II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 41 unworthy of the affections of her father's ablest scholar. For nearly forty years the companion of his brilliant career, she closed his dying eyes, and within a few days was laid beside him in the grave. If the artistic instructions of Pacheco were of little value to Yelazquez, he must at least have benefited by his residence in a house, which was, as regards its society, the_Jifiat_academy ofjbastfijrhich Seville afforded. There he saw and conversed with all that Andalusia could boast, of intellect and refinement ; he heard art discussed by the best artists of the province, he listened to the talk of men of science and letters, and drank the new superfine principles of poetry from the lips of their author, Luis de Gongora*^ His connexion with Pacheco insured him an in- troduction to the duke of Alcalk, and admission to that nobleman's house, rich in pictures, statues, and books, and the resort of an elegant society, well fitted to give ease and polish to the manners and conversation of the futui'e courtier. Much of his leisure time was devoted to reading ; a taste which the well chosen library of Pacheco enabled him to indulge. Books on art and on kindred subjects were especially acceptable to him. For the proportions and anatomy of the 42 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. human frame he studied, says Palomino, the writings of Albert Durer and Yesalius; for physiognomy and perspective, those of Giovanni Battista Porta^ and Daniel Barbaro; he made himself master of Euclid's geometry and Moya's^ treatise on arithmetic ; and he learned something of architecture from Yitruvius and Yignola ; from these various authors, gathering, like a bee, knowledge for his own use and for the advantage of posterity. He likewise r ead the works of Federigo,^ Alberti Bomano,'* and Bafael Bor- ghini,^ which gave him some acquaintance with the arts, artists, and language of Italy. We know not if he shared in his discursive father-in-law's love of theology; but we are told that he had some taste for poetry, an art akin to his own, working with finer skill 1 He wrote De Humana Physiognomia, Libri vi. fol. Neapoli: 1602. 2 Juan Perez de Moya, author of Fragmentos Mathe- maticos. 8vo. Salamanca: J568. The portion of this work, De Arithmetica, was reprinted in 8vo, at Madrid, 1615. 3 Of these the best was VIdea c?e' Pittori, Scultori ed Architetti, fol. Torino: 1607. * He wrote Origini e progressi delV Academia del disegno. 4. Pavia: 1604. 5 Author of the Riposo della Pittura e della Scultura; 8vo. Firenze: 1584. II.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 43 and nobler materiaLs the painting of the mind. Having attained the age of twenty-three, and learned all that Seville could teach him of his profession, Velazquez conceived a desire to study the great painters of Castille on their native soil, and to improve his style by examining the trea- sures of Italian painting accumulated in the royal galleries. He accordingly made a journey in April 1622, attended by a single servant, to Madrid , the scene of his future glory, and, in the opinion of all true Spaniards, as well as in the pompous phrase of Palomino, * the noble theatre of the greatest talents in the world.'^ Pacheco, being well known there, had furnished him with vai'ious introductions, and he was kindly received by Don Luis and Don Melchor Alcazar, gentle- men of Seville, and especially by another Sevillian, Don Juan Fonseca, a noted amateur and patron of art The latter courtier, who was usher of the curtain to Philip IV., procured for him ad- mission to all the royal galleries, and used his influence to induce the king to sit to the stranger for his portrait. But Philip had not yet ex- * Noble teatro de los mayores ingenioa del orbe. Palo- mino, torn. Ui. p. 483. 44 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. II. hausted the new pleasures of reigning, and was too busy to indulge in that sedentary amusement, which afterwards became one of his favourite means of killing time. After some months* study at the Pardo and the Escorial, therefore, Velazquez returned to Seville, carrying with him the portrait of the poet Gongora, painted by desire of Pacheco. This, or another portrait by Velazquez of the same date, is now in the queen of Sjiain's gallery;^ it represents the boasted Pindar of Andalusia, as a grave bald-headed priest of middle age, and more likely to be taken for an inquisitor, jealous of all novelty and freedom of thought, than for a fashionable writer of extravagant conceits, and the leader of a new school of poetry. 1 Catal., No. 527; from this picture the small engraving, by M. S. Carmona, in the Parnaso Espanol, torn. vii. p. 171, and the larger one, by Ametler, in the Espanoles Ilusti'es, are probably taken. CHAPTER III. VELAZQUEZ having visited Madrid as an unknown student, was soon to be recalled thither a candidate for fame. During the next few months after his departure, Fonseca, now his wsirm friend, succeeded in ii ^teresting Qli- vare s in his behalf , and obtained from that minister a letter commanding the young Sevillian to repair to court, and assigning him an allow- ance of fifty ducats to defray the expense of the journey. Attended by his slave, Juan Pareja, a mulatto lad, who afterwards became an excellent painter, he lost no time obeying this order, and he was now accompanied to Madrid by Pacheco, who foresaw and wished to share the triumph which awaited his scholar. Their journey took place in the spring, probably in March of 1623. Arriving at the capital, they were lodged in the house of Fonseca, who caused Velazquez to paint his portrait. "When finished, it was carried the same evening to the palace, by a son of the count of Peuaranda, chamberlain to the cardinal-infant. 46 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. Within an hour it was seen and admired by that prince, the king, and Don Carlos, besides many of the grandees, and the fortune of Velazquez was made. We may now bestow a glance on the monarch into whose service Velazquez was about to enter, and on the court, which was to become the scene of his labours and his triumphs. Philip IV., at this time in the nineteenth year of his age, had just commenced the third year of a reign which extended over nearly half a century. The history of this reign of forty-four years is the history of misrule at home, oppres- - sion, rapacity, and revolt in the distant provinces and colonies, declining commerce, and bloody and disastrous wars closed by the inglorious peace of the Pyrenees. The two Philip^ who succeeded Charles V., inheriting the ambitious policy of that monarch, with but a slender por- tion of his ability, and with none of his good fortune, had, each in turn, wasted the resources and enfeebled the power of the most splendid crown in the world. The fourth Philip found, in the general administration of his vast unwieldy empire, an Augean stable of abuse and corrup- . tion, which might have baffled the cleansing skill even of a monarch like Ferdinand, or a III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 47 minister like Ximenes. Beyond a feeble attempt, made and relinquished in the first year of his reign, he gave no indications of a desire to accomplish the great task. The energies of his minister, Olivares, though at first turned to this end, were soon diverted by visions of military aggrandizement; and before Haro took the helm, the huge vessel of state, with its prow in the Atlantic and its stern in the Indian ocean, was already in a foundering condition. ^ Naturally of an indolent temper, the king was not long in making his. election between a life of pleasure and a life of noble toil ; he reposed supreme confidence in those whose society pleased him; and Olivares, who loved power for its own sake, dexterously turning the weakness of his master to his own account, alternately perplexed him with piles of state papers, and amused him with pretty actresses, until he felt grateful to any hand that would relieve him of the intolerable weight of his here- ditary sceptre. While province after province raised the standard of rebellion, and his superb empire was crumbling to dust, the king of the Spains and the Indies acted farces in his private ^ Voiture: (Euvres, 7 torn. 8vo. Paris: 1729:1. p. 271. 48 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. theatre, lounged in the studios, sate in solemn state in his balcony at bull-fights, or autos de fe, or retired to his cabinet at the Pardo, to toy with mistresses, or devise improvements on his gardens and galleries. * But though careless and inefficient in the dis- charge of his kingly functions, Philip TY. was a man of considerable talent, and someintellficiual activity. A s a patron of literat ure and a.rt.j he was second in knowledge and munificence to no contemporary prince. During his reign, the Castillian. stage was. at. the height of. its glory ; no expense-was spared in-representing the -thick- coming pieces of the veteran Lope, or the clas- sical Calderon;^ and the musical and dramatic en- tertainments of Buenretiro rivalled in splendour those of the English court, when Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones combined their talents to furnish forth the masques of Whitehall. The denizens of the palace breathed an atmosphere of letters : Luis de Gongora, by his contempo- raries called the Pindar,^ and by modern critics 1 The scenery and properties were so well managed, that ladies in the palace-theatre, says Carducho {I>ial. fol. 153), were sometimes made sea-sick by looking at the stage-sea. 2 Pellicer de Salas y Tovar : Lecciones solemnes a las dbras de Don Luis de Gongora, Pindaro Andaluz, 4. Madrid: 1630. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 49 the Cowley, of Spain, was one of the king's chap- lains ; Velez de Guevara held the post of cham- berlain, and the versatile Quevedo, that of royal secretary, until one of his poems aroused the re- sentment of the implacable Olivares. Barto- lome Argensola was historiographer-royal for Aragon; Antonio de Solis was a minister of state ; and the cross of Santiago rewarded the literary abilities of Calderon the Shakespeare [/ of Spain and the poet Francisco de Roxas. Nor was Philip a mere lover and p rotector of l iterature.; he wrote his own fine lan g ^iagR \w a. st ylfi ^f ppnty ^Tid pli^gi^n"'^ w^ i ^h ^fl^ ^ pl fln n been surpassed by any royal or noble author; and several volumes of his translations from the Italian, and miscellaneous works, are said to exist in manuscript, in the royal library of Madrid.^ Pellicer de Salas, a contemporary critic, praises him^ as one of the best musicians and poets of the day. Descending from the vantage-ground of royalty, and assuming the title of an Ingenio de esta corte, he even measured his strength with the wits, in the ^ Casiano Pellicer : Tratado Historico sohre la Comedia y el Hutrionismo en Espana; 2 partes sm. 8vo. Madrid : 1804, p. 163. * Lecciones a las obras de Gongora colufla 696. E 50 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. crowded field of dramatic composition ; ^ and his tragedy on the story of the English favourite, Essex, still maintains its place in collections of Castillian plays. He likewise often acted, with other ingenios of the court, in the po- pular comedias de repente, in which a given plot was wrought out by means of extempora- neous dialogues. In painting, as in literature, Philip gave evi- dence of his practical skill. Like his father and grandfather, he had been taught drawing, as a part of his education ; and under the instruc- tions of the good Dominican, Juan Bautista Mayno, he became the best artist of the house of Austria. Butron, who published his Discourses on Painting in 1626, bears his testimony to the merit of the young king's numerous pictures and drawings. 2 One of the latter, a pen and ink sketch of St. John Baptist with a lamb, having been sent to Seville, in 1 6 1 9, by Olivares, fell into the hands of Pacheco, and became the subject of a eulogistic poem by Juan de Espi- 1 Under this name lie wrote La Tragedia mas el Conde de Sex a comedy, called Bar la vida por su dama, and some others. Ochoa: Tesoro del TeatroEspa- nol, 5 tomos, 8vo. Paris: 1838 ; torn. v. p. 98. 2 J. de Butron: Discursos Apologeticos, 4. Madrid: J 626; fol. 102. in.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 51 nosa,^ who foretold, In tlie reign of this royal painter, a new age of gold, Para animar la lassitud de Hesperia. Cai'ducho mentions a more finished production of the royal pencil an oil-picture of the Virgin as being kept, in his time, in the jewel-cham- ber of the palace f and Palomino notices two pictures, bearing the signature of Philip IV., and placed by Charles 11.^ in the Escorial, pro- bably the two infant St. Johns, seen by Ponz in an oratoiy near the chamber of the prior.* A landscape with ruins, sketched in a free and spirited style, was the only relic of Philip's skill which reached the inquiring eye of Cean Ber- mudez. During his progress through Andalusia, in the spring of 1624, amidst grand hunting pai-ties at country castles, and the pompous festivities of cities, the artist monarch carefully explored the fine churches and convents that lay in his way f 1 Pacheco : Arte de laPintura, p. 113. * Carducho : I>ial., fol. 160. * Palomino : torn. i. p. 185. * Ponz : torn. ii. p. 163. * Jornada que ait Magestad hizo a laAndaluzia, escrita por Don Jacinto de Herrera y Sotomayor. fol. Madrid: 1624. E 2 52 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. and whilst residing in the beautiful Alcazar of Seville, he showed no less taste than clemency, in pardoning Herrera the Elder, accused of coin- ing false money, for the sake of his picture of St. Hermengild. At Valencia the painters used to record with pride his remark on the fine pic- tures by Aregio and Neapoli on the doors of the great silver altar of the cathedral. 'The altar,' said the king, ' is silver, but the doors are gold.' When Rubens appeared in Spain, as the envoy of the Infanta-archduchess, he was re- ceived with far higher honours than would have been bestowed on a mere Burgundian noble, of the purest blood and countless quarter- ings ; and he was afterwards entrusted by the Spanish king with a still more delicate mission to the court of England. The pencil of Yelazquez ob- tained for him, as we shall see, several courtly dig- nities and emoluments. Even ecclesiastical prefer- ment was sometimes the reward of artistic merit ; and the remonstrances of the chapter of Granada to Alonso Cano's appointment as minor canon, on the ground that his learning was insufficient, afforded Philip an occasion, which he did not let slip, of vindicating the dignity of art against the arrogance of the cloth. His reply was like those III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 53 of Charles V. and our Henry VIII. to similar complaints.^ 'Were this painter,' said he, *a learned man, who knows but that he might be archbishop of Toledo 1 1 can make canons like you at my pleasure, but God alone can make an Alonso Cano.'2 The establishment of an academy of the fine arts at Madrid, was brought by the cortes, early in this reign, under the notice of the king and ^ The emperor's reply to Titian's detractors was, * There are many princes, there is but one Titian.' Henry's answer was addressed to an earl, who complained that Holbein had kicked him down stairs for forcing the door of his painting room, and had thereby committed an outrage on his order. *My lord,' said the king, * the diflference between you two is, that of seven hinds I could make seven earls ; but of seven earls I could never make one Holbein.' Descamps, torn. i. p. 73. The emperor Maximilian I., and Francis I. are said to have administered similar retorts to their nobles, in com- pliment to Albert Durer and Leonardo da Vinci. Descamps, torn i. p. 25. Carducho: Dialogos, fol. 21 ; and a still earlier version of the story is to be found at the council of Constance, where the emperor Sigismund is reported to have rebuked a doctor, upon whom he had conferred a knightly order, for preferring the society of his new compeers to that of his old companions, in these words, * I can coin a thousand knights in a day, but I could not make one doctor in a thousand years.' Bp. Juxon : Catalogue of the most readable books in England, 4. London: 1658. Epistle dedicatory. * Palomino, tom. iii. p. 580. 54 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH, Olivares. So early as 1619, the artists of the capital had petitioned Philip III. for the forma- tion of a society of this kind, on the plan of a scientific academy then existing : but the scheme, from want of support, fell to the ground. Philip lY. and his minister, however, now favoured the design, and sanctioned the appointment of four deputies to meet and frame laws for the new in- stitution. Mais le chemin est bien long du projet k la chose, ^ and in Spain especially, it is usually travelled by very easy stages. After various preliminary negotiations, the jealousies of certain artists put a stop to all farther proceedings ;2 and the plan was laid aside, and not revived until the days of the Bourbons. Philip I Y. was, however, sincere in his endeavours to promote the establishment of an Academy ; and the purchase of ^ggts and models for the use of its students, was one of the objects for which he sent Y elazquez on hi s secondjialiainjourney. Painting and poetry being the favourite artsy of Philip lY., he did not leave, like his grand- 1 Moliere : Tartuffe: act iii, so. i. A translation of the Spanish proverb, 'Del dicho al hecho, ha gran trecho.' 2 Carducho : Dialogos, fol. 158. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 00 father, any great structure to be the monument of his reign. He had little motive, indeed, for building new palaces, possessing at Madrid and the Pardo, Aranjuez and the Escoiial, a choice of residences such as few kings could boast. Nor are his architectui*al works of such a character as to cause much regret that they were not more numerous and important. The royal church of St. Isidore, once belonging to the Jesuits, and still the most imposing temple at Madrid, affords proof both of the munificence of the monarch and of the decline of architectural taste. He made some additions to the p alace o f Bu enretir o, a pala ce bu ilt bv Olivares, and p resented by him to his master ; and erectfid oil its pleasant gard ens two large pavilions, called the hermitages of St. Anthony and St. Paul, which he adorned with frescos. Unquestionably the greatest architec- tural achievement of his reign was the Pantlieon. or royal cemetery of the Escorial, planned for Philip III. by the Italian architect Crescenci, and finished, after thirty years' labour, for his son. This splendid subterranean chapel was conse- crated with great pomp, on the 1 5th of March, 1654, in the presence of the king and the court ; when the bodies of Charles Y., his son, and y 56 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. grandson, and the queens who had continued the royal race, were carried down the stately stairs of jasper, and were reverently laid, each in its sump- tuous urn ; a Jeronymite friar pronouncing an eloquent funeral sermon, on a text from Ezekiel, 'Oh ye dry bones hear the word of the Lord.'^ Hither Philip TV. was wont to come, when melancholy ^the fatal taint of his blood was strong upon him, to hear mass and meditate on death, sitting in the niche which was shortly to receive his bones. ^ To acquire works of art was the chief pleasure of Philip, and it was the only business in which he displayed earnestness and constancy. Pich as were the galleries of Philip II., his grandson must, at the least, have doubled the number and value of their contents. His viceroys and am- bassadors, besides their daily duties of fiscal ex- tortion and diplomatic intrigue, were required to buy up, at any price, all fine works of ai^ that came into the market. He likewise employed agents of inferior rank, and more trustworthy taste, of whom Yelazquez was one, to travel abroad_ for__the same purpose, to cull the fairest ' Ximenes: Descripcion del Escorial, p. 344, 353. 8 Dunlop's Memoirs of Spain, vol. i. p. 642, 643. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 57 flowers of the modem studios, and to procure good copies of those ancient pictures and statues which money could not purchase. The gold of Mexico and Peru was freely bartered for the artistic treasures of Italy and Flanders. The king of Spain was a collector with whom it was vain to compete, and in the prices which he paid for the gems of painting and sculpture, if in nothing else, he was in advance of his age. From a convent at Palermo, he bought, for an annual pension of looo crowns, Rafael's famous picture of our Lord going to Calvary, known as the * Spasimo,' which he named his *Jewel.'^ His ambassador to the English Commonwealth, Don Alonso de Cardenas, was the principal buyer at the sale at Whitehall, when the noble gallery ^ of Charles I. was dispersed by the protector. There Philip, for the sum of 2000/., became possessed of that lovely ' Holy Family,' Rafael's most ex- quisitely finished work, once the pride of Mantua, ^ Camberland : Catalogue of Paintings in ike Palace at Madrid, p. 80, and Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 172. * His purchases required eighteen mules to carry them from the coast; and lord Clarendon, ambassador from the exiled Charles II., was somewhat unceremoniously dismissed from Madrid in order that he might not witness the arrival of the treasures of his unfortunate master. Clarendon, Mist, of Rebellion. 6 vols. 8vo. Oxford: 1826; vol. vi. p. 459. 58 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. which he fondly called his 'Pearl,' a graceful name, which may, perhaps, survive the picture.^ To him the Escorial likewise owed Rafael's heavenly * Virgin of the Fish,' carried, with the *Spasimo' and the 'Pearl,' to Paris, by Napoleon ; but happily restored to the Queen of Spain's gallery; and the charming 'Madonna of the Tent,' bought from the spoilers in 1813, for 5000Z., by the king of Bavaria, and now the glory and the model of Munich. ^ He also en- riched his collection with many fine Venetian pictures, amongst which was ' Adonis asleep on the lap of Venus,' the masterpiece of Paul Vero- nese, a gem of the royal gallery of Spain, where it rivals the Venus and Adonis of Titian in magi- cal effect and voluptuous beauty. Of the rich compositions of Domenichino, the soft virgins of Guido and Guercino, the Idalian nymphs of Al- bano, the classical landscapes of 'learned Poussin,' Salvator Rosa's brown solitudes or sparkling sea- pos^tSj-and -Claude Lorraine's glorious dreams of Elysian earth and ocean, his walls were adorned 1 Rafael von Urbino und sein Vater Giovanni Santi; von J. D. Passavant. In Zwei Theilen, 8vo. Leipsig: 1839. Th, ii. p. 306, 2 Id. Th. ii. pp. 150197. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 59 with excellent specimens, fresh from the studio ; and also of the works of Rubens, Yandyck, Jor- daens, Snyders, Grayer, Teniers, and the other able artists who flourished in that age in Flanders. The grandees and nobles, like the English lords of Charles I., knowing the predilections of their master, frequently showed their loyalty and taste, by presenting him with pictures and statues. Thus the gay and gallant duke of Medina de las Torres better known to the world as the mar- quess of Toral, in Gil Bias gave Correggio's * Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene after his Resurrection,' the ' Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple,' by Paul Veronese, and the ' Virgin's flight into Egypt,' by Titian ; Don Luis de Haro, Titian's ' Repose of the Virgin,' an 'Ecce Homo,' by Paul Veronese, and * Christ at the column,' by Cambiaso ; and the admiral of Castile, ' St. Margaret restoring a boy to life,' by Cara- vaggio. Philip IV. was no less fond of sculptur^;^ than ^J of painti ng. It is said that the coachman who drove him about Madrid, had general orders to slacken his pace whenever the royal carriage passed the hospice belonging to the Paular Car- thusians, in the street of Alcal^ that his master might have leisure to admire the fine stone 60 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. effigy of St. Bruno, executed by Pereyra, which occupied a niche over the portal. He formed a large collection of antique statuary, and of copies, in marble, bronze, and plaster, of the most famous works of sculpture in Italy, of which no less than three hundred pieces were bought by Velazquez, or executed under his eye, and brought to Spain, in 1653, by the count of Oiiate, returning from his viceroyalty at Naples. Of these, the greater part were placed in the Alcazar of Madrid, in an octagon hall designed by Yelazquez, the northern gallery, and the grand staircase ; and some were sent to adorn the alleys and parterres of the gardens at Aran- juez. Philip lY. is one of those potentates who was more fortunate in his painters than his bio- graphers, and whose face is, therefore, better known than his history. His pale Flemish complexion, fair hair, heavy lip, and sleepy, grey eyes his long curled mustachios, dark dress, and collar of the Golden fleece have been made familiar to all the world by the pencils of Rubens and Yelazquez. Charles I., with his melancholy brow, pointed beard, and jewelled star, as painted by Yandyck, is not better known to the frequenters of galleries ; nor the pompous III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 61 benign countenance of Louis XIY., shining forth from a wilderness of wig, amongst the silken braveries which delighted Mignard, or Rigand, or on his prancing pied charger, like a holiday soldier as he was, in the foreground of some pageant battle, by Yandermeulen. Fond as were these sovereigns of perpetuating themselves on canvas, they have not been so frequently or so variously portrayed as their Spanish con- temporary. Armed and mounted on his sprightly Andalusian, glittering in crimson and gold gala, clad in black velvet for the council, or in russet and buff for the boar-hunt under all these different aspects did Philip submit himself to the quick eye and cunning hand of Yelazquez. And not content with multiplications of his own likeness in these ordinary attitudes and employ- ments, he caused the same great artist to paint him at prayers, To take him in the purging of his soul ^ as he knelt amongst the embroidered cushions of his oratory. In all these va rious portraits we \ find the same cold phlegmatic expression, which gives his face the appearance of a mask, and agrees so well with the pen and ink sketches of * Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3. 62 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. contemporary writers, who celebrate his talents for dead silence and marble immobility, talents hereditary indeed in his house, but, in his case, so highly improved, that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot,^ and con- duct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue. ^ He rode his horse, handled his gun, quaffed his sober cups of cinnamon-water,^ and performed his devotions with an unchangeable solemnity of mien, that might have become him in pronouncing, or re- ceiving, sentence of death. A remarkable proof of his imperturbability occurred at a famous entertainment given to him, in 1 63 1, by Olivares, when, in honour of the birthday of the heir apparent, that magnificent favourite renewed in the bull-ring of Spain the sports of ancient Rome. A lion, a tiger, a bear, a camel, in fact, a specimen of every procurable wild animal, or as Quevedo expressed it in a poeti- cal account of the spectacle, ' the whole ark of Noah, and all the fables of -^sop,' were turned loose into the spacious Plaza del Parque, to ^ Voyage d' Espagne. 4. Paris: 1669; p. 36. ^ Voyage d'Espagne. i2mo. Cologne: 1667; p. 33. * Dunlop's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 651. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WOKKS. 63 fight for the mastery of the arena. To the great delight of his Castillian countrymen, a bull of Xarama vanquished all his antagonists. ' The bull of Marathon, which ravaged the coimtry of Tetrapolis,' says the historian of the day,^ ' was not more valiant; nor did Theseus, who slew and sacrificed him, gain greater glory than did our most potent sovereign. Unwilling that a beast which had behaved so bravely should go un- rewarded, his majesty determined to do him the greatest favour that the animal himself could have possibly desired, had he been gifted with reason, to mt, to slay him with his own royal hand.' Calling for his fowling-piece, he brought it instantly to his shoulder; and the flash and report were scarcely seen and heard ere the mighty monster ^ Josef Pellicer de Tobar : Anfiteairo de Felipe el Grande Rey Catolico de las Esparias; contiene los elogios que han celebrado la suerte que hizo en el toro en la fiesta agonal de treze de Otubre deste ano de mdcxxxi. sm. 8vo. Madrid: 1631. A very rare and curious little book, of eleven preliminary leaves, including the title, and eighty leaves paged on one side only ; of which I know no copy but that in the fine library of Don Pascual de Gayangos, at Madrid. It contains poems in praise of the king and his ball-practice by Quevedo, Lope de Vega, Francisco de Rioja, Juan de Jauregui, the prince of Esquilache, Yelez de Guevara, Catalina Henriquez, and twelve other wits of the court. 64 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. lay a bleeding corpse before the transported lieges. * Yet not for a moment,' continues the chronicler, 'did his majesty lose his wonted serenity, his composure of countenance, and becoming gravity of aspect ; and but for the presence of so great a concourse of witnesses, it was difficult to believe that he had really fired the noble and successful shot.' Bom on Good Friday, he was supposed to possess a kind of second sight, popularly at- tributed in Spain to persons bom on that day, the power of seeing the body of the mur- dered person wherever a murder had been com- mitted ; and his habit of gazing up into the air was believed to proceed from a natural desire to avoid a spectacle so disagreeable, and so likely to offer itself in a country where violence was not uncommon.^ To jaaintain a s ;rave and maiestin dftnnft annnr in public, was, in his opinion, one of the most sacred duties of a sovereign ; he was jieve r kno wn to smile but three times in his_Mf p;^ and it was doubtless his desire to go down to pos- terity as a model of regal deportment. Yet this stately Austrian, whose outward man seems 1 D'Aulnoy : Voyage en Espagne; vol. iii. p. 195. * Dunlop's Memoirs; vol. i. p. 389. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 65 the very personification of etiquette, possessed a rich vein of humour, which, on fitting occasions, he indulged with Cervantes' serious air ; ' he was full of merry discourse, when and where his lined robe of Spanish and royal gravity was laid aside ;'^ he trode the primrose paths of dalliance, acted in private theatricals, and bandied plea- santries with Calderon himself ^ Although he was not remarkable for beauty of feature, his figure was tall and well turned; and he was, on the whole, better entitled to be called Philip the Handsome, than Philip the Great the style which Olivares absurdly persuaded him to assume.^ When at Lisbon, in his early youth, as prince of Asturias, he stood forth in a dress of white satin and gold, to receive the oath of allegiance from the cortes of Portugal, he was one of the most splendid figures of that idle pageant.* Nor was he deficient in the softer graces; for, his second queen, Mariana of Austria, fell in love, it is said, with his portrait in the Imperial palace, at Vienna, and early ^ Original Letters of Sir Richard Famhaw. 8vo. London: 1702 ; p. 421. ^ Ochoa : Teatro spanol, torn. v. p. 98. ' Dunlop's Memoirs; vol. i. p. 56. * Id. p. 2. GQ VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. vowed that she would marry no one but her cousin with the blue feather. ^ The Infants of Spain, brothers of Philip lY., shared the elegant accomplishments of the king ; they both of them had been instructed in draw- ing in their youth; and Carducho commends two sketches executed by them and possessed by Eugenio Caxes.^ Don Carlos, beloved by the Spaniards for his dark Castillian complexion,^ and supposed to possess talents which aw-akene4 the jealousy of Olivares,* died in 1632, at the early age of twenty-six. The cardinal-infant Don Fernando, the ablest legitimate son of Austria since Charles Y., inherited the love of art which belonged to his house, and acquired considerable skill in painting, under the instruc- tions of Yincencio Carducho. Invested, while yet a boy, with the Roman purple and the mitre of Toledo, he affected no saintly austerities, but early became the life and soul of the court, and the leader of its revels. At his country- house of Zarzuela, near Madrid, he set the fashion of those half-musical, half-dramatic en- 1 Voyage d'Espagne. 4. Paris : 1669 ; p. 38. 2 Carducho ; Dialog os j fol. 160. ^ Epistolce Ho-eliance, p. 125. * Dimlop's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 169. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. G7 tertainments, performed under his auspices with gi'eat splendour of decoration, and long popular in Spain by the name of Zarzuelas.^ Nor was he wholly devoted to the pleasures of gay life ; he loved books and literary society, studied phi- losophy and mathematics, and was versed in several foreign languages.- Being appointed governor of Flanders at the age of twenty-two, this prince passed the remaining nine years of his life in councils and conferences, or at the head of armies. But the victor of Nordliagen still found time to sit to Rubens, Grayer, and Vandyck, and to bestow some fostering care on the arts. His brief and brilliant career ended in 1641 ; when the architect Lorenzo Fernandez de Salazar was employed to erect a monument seventy feet high, in the centre aisle of the cathedral, and his clergy adorned it with many inscriptions, in various languages, setting forth the glories of the cardinal; the city and chapter of Toledo celebrated the obsequies of their arch- bishop with great pomp, and bewailed him as, Hispanus Mars, urbis fulgor, et Austrius heros Iiifans, prdesul, primas, Ferdinandus amandus.^ 1 Ponz, torn. vi. p. 152. ^ Pellicer de Salas : Lecciones a las obras de Gongora : dedication to the Cardinal-Infant. Pyra Religiosa, que la muy santa Iglesia, primada de F 2 68 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. ThfiJbeautifuI-Quefiii Isabella de Bourbon, Elizabetb of France, daughter of Henry lY., and sister of our Henrietta Maria the first wife of Philip TV., wasjfcha_starof the court, and the loveliest subject of the pencil of Velazquez. To that master is attributed a curious and interest- ing picture, in the collection of the earl of Elgin,^ representing the scene upon the border stream of the Bidassoa, on the 9th of November, 161 5, when France exchanged this princess, then in her girlhood, betrothed to the prince of Asturias, for a Spanish infanta, the celebrated Anne of Austria, bride of Louis XIII. In the centre of the stream a pavilion, constructed on several boats, is moored, towards which a canopied barge, containing a princess and her attendants, ad- vances from either bank. On the banks are seen larger pavilions, adorned with the respective lets Espanas erigid al Cardinal- Infante D. Fernando de Austria, por el licenciado Joseph Gonzalez de Yarela. 4. Madrid : 1642, p. 53. This handsome volume contains a print of the monument, and an engraved title-page in which there is a portrait of the cardinal, by G. C. Semin. ^ At Broomhall, Fifeshire. It was obtained by the late earl a Scottish duke of Alcaic, whose name will ever be remembered as a benefactor to British art in France, during the wars of the empire, and once formed part of the gallery of the Luxembourg. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 69 banners and arms of France and Spain; and behind them squadrons of cavalry, and companies of the Scottish archers of the guard, in their white uniforms, and other infantry of both nations, the whole exactly answering to the description of the chroniclers Mantuano and Cespedes.^ The river, figures, pavilions, and background of bold wooded mountains, are well painted; and although the picture cannot be an original work of Velazquez, who, at the time of this exchange of brides, was a lad of sixteen, in Herrera's school at Seville, it may have been executed by him at a later period, from the sketches of some other artist. Of Isabella's life, few particulars have been recorded ; but she seems to have shared in the tastes of her husband. In July 1624, a mad or impious Frenchman broke the Host in pieces in the church of St. Felipe, and was strangled and burnt for his pains.2 To propitiate the insulted majesty of ^ Pedro Mantuano : Caamitntos de Espario y Francia. 4. Madrid: 1618, pp. 228, 238. Gon^alo de Cespedes y Meneses: Historia de Don Felipe IV., fol. Barcelona: 1634 ; P- 3- * Rdadon del auto de fi en Madrid a 14 dias de Julio deste aiio, por el Lic^. P. Lopez de Mesa ; a curious folio tract of 2 leaves. Madrid : 1624. c 70 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. tlie wafer, solemn services were performed in that and other churches, and a grand ceremonial was held in the Alcazar. For the grave Castillian court, a religious festival had all the charms of a masquerade ; no expense was spared in preparing one of the corridors of the palace for the occasion, and each member of the royal family superin- tended the erection and adornments of an altar. That of the young queen surpassed all the rest in taste and magnificence, and glittered with jewels to the value of three millions and a half of crowns. ^ Don Gaspar de Guzman, count of Olivares, and duke of San Lucar, for twenty-two years supreme in Spain, was the most powerful, labo- 1 rious, unscrupulous, and unfortunate minister of the seventeenth century. Few conquerors have ever gained territories so extensive as those which he lost to the Castillian crown. It is to him that Spain justly attributed the loss of Por- tugal, and its vast dependencies in both the Indies. During his administration several of the provinces of Spain itself, and all those in Flanders and Italy, were in a state of chronic commotion or revolt. He was, however, a friend to litera- ' Florez : Reynas Catholicas, torn. ii. p. 941. j III.] ^ VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 71 ture and the fine arts, partly from inclination, and partly because he found in them a convenient means of diverting the king's attention from the murmurs of the people, and from his own abuse of power. The Halifax of Castille, Olivares was the hero of a thousand dedications of books ; he was the patron of Quevedo, Gongora, the Argen- solas, Pacheco, and other men of letters; and Lope de Vega, who was his chaplain, was enter- tained in his house,^ as he had been, half a cen- tury before, in that of the great Alba. His library was one of the largest and most curious in Spain, and abounded in splendid manuscripts and book-rarities of all sorts, which were in- herited, neglected, and probably dispersed by the profligate marquess of Heliche, son of the minister Haro.2 In his early days he was distinguished for his magnificent mode of life;^ and the * Dunlop's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 359. * The abbe Bertaut de llouen paid two visits to this fine library, which he describes as very curious ; and on one of these occasions he had an interview with the marquess, who entertained the literary abb6 with a disquisition on the horses of Andalusia. Voyage (TEspagne. 4. Paris : 1669; pp. 170, 171. * Valdory : Anecdotes du Ministire d'Olivarez tirees et traduitea de V Italien de Siri. lamo. Paris: 1722; pp. 7,9- .y- 72 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. dramatic and musical entertainments given in 1 63 1, by the favourite and his duchess, in the grounds of her brother, the count of Monterey, enlarged for the occasion by the removal of the walls of two contiguous gardens, were long remembered by the gay world of Madrid.^ The palace of Buenretiro was, as we have seen,^ the creation of Olivares; and the Moorish Alcazar of Seville received many additions and embel- lishments during the time that he held the post of its alcayd^.^ He was the friend and patron of Rubens, whom he employed to paint some magnificent pictures for the conventual church of his village of Loeches. Yelazquez, on his arrival at court, found a protector in the power- ful minister, who was one of his first sitters; Murillo, likewise, enjoyed his favour durifig his brief residence at Madrid ; and it speaks well for his amiable qualities and demeanour in private life, that those great artists were amongst the few friends who remained faithful to him in his fallen fortunes. ^ Casiano Pellicer : Origen y progresos de la Comedia en Espana, torn. i. p. 174. 2 Page 55- * The description of this Alcazar, by Rod. Caro, Antig. de Sevilla, fol. 56 58, shows that little beyond repairs has been done by his successors. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 73 The court and capital of Spain, where, for more than a century, it had been fashionable to have a taste, could boast, under Philip _IV._,^ner ^ galleries of art, and a greater number of amateur artists than any other city, Rome only excepted. As the great houses, which had given viceroys to Peru and Mexico, were remarkable for their im- mense services of silver and gold plate, so those, whose lords had held the Italian and Flemish governments and embassies, prided themselves on their pictures and tapestries; and in some fortunate families, the sideboard and the gallery were furnished with equal splendour.^ The palace of the admii-al of Castille was adorned' with many fine specimens of Rafael, Titian, Correggio, and Antonio More, curious armour, and exquisite sculptures in bronze and marble; and that of the prince of Esquilache Francisco de Borgia, one of the nine poets who are "called the Castillian muses was also famous for the ~ pictures which adorned its great hall. The marquess of Leganes, and the count of Monterey prime favourites of Olivares, whose shame- less rapacity at Milan and Naples obtained for 1 Made. d'Aulnoy : Voyagty let. ix. ; and Lady Fan- Shaw's Memoirs, p. 227. 74 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. them the name of the two thieves,^ were likewise eminent collectors. The count possessed a famous series of sketches by Michael Angelo, known as the ' Swimmers,' and a ' Holy Family' by Kafael;^ the noble nunnery which he built at Salamanca was a museum of art;^ and Carducho has, perhaps, a sly allusion to the unscrupulous means by which this nobleman enriched his gallery, in his question ' What would the count of Mon- terey not do to obtain fine original pictures?'* The pictures of Don Juan de Espina were numerous and valuable : he had a curious collec- tion of carvings in ivory ; and he possessed two volumes of sketches and manuscripts by Leonardo da Yinci.^ The duke of Alba enriched his here- ditary gallery with some choice pictures from Whitehall. The good count of Lemos, the dukes of Medina-celi, and Medina de las Torres, the marquesses of Alcaic, Almagan, Yelada, Vil- lanueva del Fresno, and Alcanigas, the counts of Osomo, Benavente, and Humanes, Geronimo ^ Guidi : Relation de ce que s^est passe en Espagne d la disgrace du Comte-Duc d'Olivarez, traduite de Vltalien. 8vo, Paris: 1658; p. 63. 2 Carducho : Dialogos, fol. 148. 3 Ponz : torn. xii. p. 226. * Dialog, fol. 159. 5 Id. fol. 156. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 75 Fures y Muniz, knight of Santiago, and 'gen- tleman of the mouth'* to the king, Geronimo de Villafuerte j Zapata, keeper of the crown jewels, Suerode Quiiiones, great standard bearer of Leon, Rodrigo de Tapia, Francisco de Mi- ralles, Francisco de Aguilar, and other courtiers, were all owners of jfine pictures. The duke of Alcalk, Principe, cuya fama esclarecida Por virtudes y letras serd eterna,^ whose scholarly and artistic tastes and talents have already been noticed,^ was ambassador to Rome, and viceroy of Naples, under Philip lY., and sometimes, also, an ornament of the capital. Don Juan Fonseca y Figueroa, brother to the marquess of Orellana, canon and chancellor of Seville, and usher of the curtain* to the king, and the early patron of Velazquez, was a good amateur artist, and painted an esteemed portrait of the poet Rioja. Don Juan de Jauregui, knight of Calatrava, and master of the horse to ^ * Geatilhombre de la boca,' an officer who waited on his majesty at table. * Lope de Vega : Laurel de Apolo. ' Page 25. * An officer whose duty it was to draw aside the curtain of the gallery where the king sat in church, and who also discharged the functions of almoner. 76 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. queen Isabella, and the elegant translator of Tasso and Lucan/ was no less skilled in painting than in poetry. His taste for the former, ac- quired or improved at Rome, chiefly displayed itself in portraiture, and he executed a picture of Cervantes, of which that great author makes honourable mention in the prologue to his novels. He gave some of his best pictures to his friend Medina de las Torres, of whose apartments in the royal palace they formed a principal adornment- 2 An engraver, likewise, of some skill, he furnished plates for the Jesuit Luis de Alcazar's treatise on the Apocalypse.^ Lope de Yega has celebrated him in various poetical pieces,"* and Pacheco contributed to the collection of eulogistic verses which prefaced his poems, a sonnet highly complimentary to his ' learned lyre and valiant pencil.' One of his best poems is a dialogue between Sculpture and Painting on ^ He published El Aminta de Tasso, with itimas, of his own. 4. Sevilla: i6i8; and some prose pieces, amongst which was that on Painting in Carducho's work. La Far- salia was not printed till after his death, in 1684. 4. Madrid. 2 Cardueho: Dial. fol. 156. ^ Vestkjatio arcani sensus in Apocalipsi. fol. Antwerp : T619- * Obras: torn. i. p. 38 ; iv. p. 503. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 77 their relative merits, which is closed by a speech from dame Nature, who decides in favour of the latter.^ Don Geronimo Fures was an excellent artist and judge of art; the favourite subjects of his pencil were scenes or figures emblematic of moral maxims; and of these, a ship wearing bravely before the wind, under press of sail, with the motto, Non credos tempori, was reckoned the best. The list of amateurs, which might be considerably extended, may be closed with the name of Don Juan de Butron, who practised with considerable skill the art of which he defended with his pen the dignities and im- munities. The pprraitjQfJEIonsica, painted by Velazquez, so much delighted the king, that he immediately issued the following memorandum to Pedro de Hof Huerta, an ofl&cer in whose department artistic appointments were managed : ' I have informed Di^go V elazquez that y ou receive hi m into my service, to occupy himself in his profes- sion as I shall hereafter command; and I have appointed him a monthly salary of 20 ducats, payable at the office of works for the royal palaces, the Casa del Campo and the Pardo ; you ^ liimas, p. 174. 78 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. will prepare the necessary commission according to the form observed with other persons of his profession. Given at Madrid on the 6th of April, 1623.'^ Velazquez likewise received the royal commands t_o __fiaint the portrait of the infant Don Fernando; and his majesty, grow- ing impatient, caused his own solemn countenance to be commenced about the same time. The completion of these pictures was, how- ever, delayed by the festivities which celebrated the famous love-pilgrimage of Charles, prince of "Wales, to the court of Spain. The royal wooer and his squire Buckingham had arrived at Madrid on the 7 th of March, the same month in which Yelazquez and Pacheco took up their abode there. Royal bull-fights, sword and cane playing, dramatic performances, religious cere- monies, hunting parties and balls, alternated with those diplomatic conferences in which the prince and Steenie argued questions of state policy in the language of youthful passion, to the perplexment of grey intriguers and the ex- citement of false hopes and fears in the doctors ^ Spanish sovereigns do not speak of themselves in the first person plural, like other potentates, Yo el Rey being the signature appended to all documents issued by the crown. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 79 of Lambeth and Toledo. The policy of Olivares required that king James and his son should be kept in a state of hopeful suspense until the emperor had made sure of the palatinate from which he had chased their unfortunate kins- man, the pfalzgrave Frederick, better known as king of Bohemia. For five months, therefore, Charles and Steenie were amused by the solemn and specious quibbles of the minister, the frank hospitality of the young king, and the stately coquetry of the queen and the infanta. They at last, indeed, discovered and outdid the insincerity of the Castillian court; the prince presenting the object of his romantic passion with a diamond anchor, as a token of his hopes and constancy, after he had resolved to bestow his hand and plumed crown elsewhere. But so well was the deception maintained on both sides, that as late as the 19th of August, a few days before Charles took his leave, the English at Madrid, true to the habits of Newmarket, were betting thirty to one on the successful consummation of the match.^ If Charles won not, in this celebrated journey, a daughter of Spain for his bride, he at least acquired, or greatly increased, those tastes which * Howell's Zer*. 8. London: 1754. p. 146. 80 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. adorned his few prosperous years, and still lend a grae to his memory. He saw the Spanish capital in its height of splendour, its i)alaces, churches, and convents filled with the fairest creations of art; he witnessed the performance of magnificent services, at altars glowing with the pictures of Titian and El Mudo, and long processions, where the groves of silken banners were relieved by moving stages, whereon were displayed the fine statuary of Hernandez, and the glorious plate of Alvarez and the d'Arphes. In the halls of the Escorial and the Pardo, his ambition was awakened to4brm a^all^ry of a^^- worthy ofthe British cru^n the only object of his ambition which it ever was his fortune to attain. The nucleus of those treasures of paint- ing, which he afterwards assembled at White- hall, was formed from the collections of the count of Yillamediana,! and the sculptor Pom- peyo Leoni, sold by auction during his residence at Madrid. He ofiered Don^ Andres Yelazguez ^ The strange murder of this count, who is supposed to have been the lover of queen Isabella, and to have fallen a victim to the jealousy of Philip IV., is related by lord Holland; Life of Lope de Vega, p. 71. For anecdotes of his gallantries, see Madame d'Aulnoy : Voyage, tom. ii. p. 19. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 81 lO QO CrO Wna fr^r- fl_3Tna]1 pipf.nrPi on noppf^f^Jh^ Correggio, but was refused it; and he met with the like ill success in his attempts to obtain the precious volumes of Da Vinci's drawings and manuscripts, from Don Juan de Espina, who excused himself on the plea that he intended to bequeath his collection of art to the king, his master. 1 Many fine pictures were, however, presented to him by the king and the courtiers, Philip gave him the famous Antiope, by Titian, his father's favourite picture,^ a truly royal gift, Diana bathing, Europa, and Danae, works of the same master, which, although packed up, were left behind by the prince, in his hasty retreat, and never reached England. It is strang^hat_the_4iiinca_8hould not have carried to Englajid_any_sj)ecimen of Spanish painting. No Spanish name is to be found in the catalogues of his collections; although, ten years afterwards, when ominous clouds were gathering round his throne, he employed Miguel de la Cruz, a painter of promise, cut ojff by an ^ Carducho: Dial. fol. 156. * On being informed that there had been a fire at the Pardo, where this picture used then to hang, Philip III. immediately asked if the Antiope was saved, and being told that it was, said, 'Enough ! anything else can be replaced.' Carducho : Dial. fol. 155. O 82 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. early death, to execute copies of a number of pictures in tlie Alcazar at Madrid. Nor was he ignorant of the name and powers of Velazquez ; for Pacheco informs us that his son-in-law began a picture of him, with which the prince was so well pleased, that he presented the artist with a hundred crowns. No notice, however, of the completion or the fate of this interesting por- trait has been preserved.^ ^ In the summer of 1847, ^ portrait of Charles I. was exhibited in London as the missing picture by Velazquez ; and the proprietor, Mr. John Snare, a bookseller at Reading, and an amateur of pictures, afterwards published a volume about it, entitled The History and Pedigree of the Portrait of Prince Charles, aftervjards Charles /., painted by Velazquez in 1623. 8vo. Reading: 1847, pp. iii. 228. From this work it appears that Mr. Snare bought the picture for 8L, at a sale in the country, and that he believes it to be identical with a portrait of Charles I. by Velazquez, mentioned in a privately printed catalogue of the gallery of the earl of Fife, who died in 1809. He has shown great industry in collecting, and skill in arranging the presumptive evidence as to this point, which I do not think, however, that he has proved. But, supposing it proved, it establishes nothing more than the opinion of lord Fife ; and all the previous history of the picture offered by Mr, Snare, is mere ingenious conjecture. I cannot agree with him in considering that this picture, more than three parts finished, can be the work spoken of by Pacheco as a ' bosquexd' or sketch ; I think Charles looks considerably older than twenty-three, his age in 1623 ; and I see no resemblance in the style of the execution, to any of the acknowledged works of Velaz- quez. Mr. Snare's book, however, is no less candid than curious, and deserves a place amongst works on Spanish art, were it only for the translation of Pacheco's notice of Velazquez, with which it concludes. To this note, published in 1848, Mr. Snare made a reply, HI.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 83 Velazquez finished the portrait of the king on the^Safch-of-August, and the w Qr> ?if- on^ft fir^j h is pos ition as the most popularart ist of the da y. in a pamphlet entitled Proofs of the Authenticity of the Portrait of Charles I. by Velazquez. 8vo. Reading: J848. Here he informs us, on the authority of Mr. C. H. Vizer, of Lloyds, that hosqaexo, or bosquejo means a painting in an unfinished state ; and he alleges that in rendering that word * sketch' I proved my ignorance of its true meaning. I at once confess that the meaning of the word, as well as my own meaning, would have been more precisely conveyed had I translated it * sketch upon canvas,' or 'beginning of a pic- ture.' But this hardly aflfects the real point at issue, namely, whether the term bosquejo can be reasonably ap- plied to the picture in question. The Dictionary of the Academy (6 vol. fol. Madrid, 1726 39) defines the verb bosquejar thus, ' To give to canvas, plates of metal, walls, or boards, their first colours, which, from being confused, and without lines or profiles, shades or lights, show the design indistinctly ; or to give the first strokes {dar la primera mano) to a picture afterwards to be finished. Lat. Picturam adumbrare, primore manu et opera infor- mare. The substantive bosquejo is defined 'Painting in the first indistinct colours. It seems to be derived from bosque (wood, Lat. lucus, nemus, sylva) from the analogy between the confusion and obscurity of the tints in a bosquejo, and the confusion and shade of the boughs in a bosque. The term is applied in a metaphorical sense to anything unfinished or indistinct.' The word borron (blot, Lat. litura) is explained in one of its senses as being used by painters to express ' the first ideas of their pictures, or parts of them as they appear en bosquejo y con- fusas.'' Palomino, who published his work some years be- fore the Dictionary appeared {Museo Pitorico, 3 vols. fol. Madrid : 1715 24, ii. p. 40), devotes a folio page to direc- tions for the TOoc?o de bosquejar una cabeza, which is to be done on canvas with a neutral tint, tinta oscura. The bosquejo being finished and quite dry, he next explains how the colours are to be laid on. Carducho (i>ia^ogro. 4. Madrid : 1633, fol. 133), says it is the business of the pupil or servant {flfficioL) to make, from the master's original cartoon, the out- O 2 84 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. Philip was portrayed in liis armour, and mounted on a fine Andalusian charger, the position which best became him, for we have it on the authority line of the composition on the canvas or wall, and then to bosquejar it, after which it is time to lay on the colours, meter los colores. But Pacheco himself is so copious and minute in his directions for the various methods of making a bosquejo {Arte de la Pintura, p. 386,) that he himself is the best commentator on the word of which his use has given rise to so long a discussion. He says, after the out- line of the picture has been completed, the artist must begin the bosquejo; and that some make it in white and black, while others use the same colours which are after- wards to be employed ; he himself preferring the latter method, when the painter has acquired sufficient skill and certainty of hand to avoid the necessity of subsequent changes. Amongst other rules, he especially enforces it on the tyro that the flesh of his picture is the first thing which he ought to bosquejar, and the last which he ought to finish. From these passages I venture, therefore, to infer that the word bosquejo was generally applied, in Pacheco' s time, and by himself, to a picture upon which the first pigments had been crudely laid, and of which no part was finished, and that he would not have applied it to a picture so nearly finished as that exhibited by Mr. Snare. Had the prince of Wales's portrait emerged from its bosquejo state, and been made into a picture by Velazquez between 1623 and 1649, the date of Pacheco' shook, I believe that Pacheco would have told us so. There was no reason why the fact should be suppressed ; and those who have read the book will acquit the author of any disposition to suppress facts for the mere purpose of sparing words. Assuming the picture to have belonged to lord Fife, Mr. Snare attached great importance to the assertion in the Fife catalogue that it had once belonged to the duke of Buckingham. The historical weight of this fact, if it be a fact, depends on another assumption of Mr. Snare's, that the duke meant was George Villiers, Charles's com- panion in Spain, or his son, and not one of the Sheffields, dukes of Buckingham, of whom the second died so late as ^735- I ^^s not, and am not, convinced that the picture III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 85 of the great master of equitation, the duke of Newcastle, that he was absolutely the best horse- man in all Spain. ^ The picture was exhibited, by the royal per- ever belonged to lord Fife at all. But Mr. Snare suci^eeded in convincing the trustees of the earl's estate, who pro- cured a sheriflf's warrant and seized the picture during its exhibition in Edinburgh, in February, 1849. Hence arose legal proceedings, in which Mr. Snare successfully vindicated his rights as proprietor, somewhat, of course, to the detri- ment of the picture's pedigree. In July, 1851, he made re- prisals in a new action, in which he obtained lOooZ. damages, and matter for another pamphlet, (The Velazquez Cause. 8. Edinburgh: 1851, pp. iv. 100), even more candid and enter- taining than its predecessors. Amongst his witnesses were several picture dealers who valued the picture at from 5000Z. to io,oool. The Fife party, who defended their claim to the picture mainly on the evidence of Mr. Snare's writings, produced other picture dealers, of equal reputation, who did not consider it worth more than from 5L to 15Z. Sir John "Watson Gordon, P.R.S.A., than whom no man living has a better title to pronounce with authority on the merits of a portrait, was of opinion that it had nothing of the style of Velazquez, was 'not good,' and wanted 'force and decision;' and I believe those who are familiar with the great works of the master will agree with the worthy occupant of the chair of Raeburn. In artistic criticism, however, nothing is certain but vaguest uncertainty and irreconcileable diflerence amongst the doctors. No position is so strong that it may not be assailed ; and every combatant takes the field with the bull-dog spirit of the Briton, who never knows when he is beaten. Mr. Snare has fought his battle with equal skill, courage, and good faith ; and he has inseparably con- nected his name with the names of Pacheco and Velazquez. His published writings on the subject of his picture were, in 185 1, eight in number, containing together upwards of 490 pages, and he has probably since added something to the catalogue. I understand he is now exhibiting his picture in America. 1 A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to dress Horaesj kc. ; p. 8. 86 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. mission, on a day of festival, in front of the church of San Felipe el Real, in the High street {Calle Mayor) of Madrid, amidst the admiration of the citizens and the envy of the artists. * There, in the open air, did Yelazquez, like the painters of Greece, listen to the praises of a delighted public.'^ The king was charmed with his own likeness; the court re-echoed the royal raptures ; Yelez de Guevara composed a sonnet, extolling the picture to the skies j^ and the count-duke, proud of his young countryman, declared that the portrait of his majesty had never been painted until now. Such a remark, from the lips of a prime-minister with preten- sions to connoisseurship, must have been no less galling to Carducho, Caxes, and the other court- painters who had accomplished the same task with credit, than flattering to Yelazquez. The king followed up the blow by talking of collecting and cancelling his existing portraits. He paid the handsome sum of 300 ducats for the present picture.^ And emulous of Alexander the Great* 1 Penny Ci/clopcedia, Art. Velazquez. 2 It is quoted by Palomino, torn. iii. p. 487. 3 Pacheco: p. 102. * Who, says Horace, (Ep. Lib. ii. i, 239,) Edicto vetuit, ne quis se prseter Apellen Pingeret. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 87 and Charles Y., and believing that he had now found an Apelles or a Titian, he resolved that in future Velazquez should have the monopoly of his royal countenance for all purposes of painting. This resolution he kept far more religiously than his marriage vows, for he appears to have departed from it during the lifetime of his chosen artist, in favour only of Rubens and Grayer. Meanwhile, honest Pachgco was overjoyed at the success of his son-in-law. It gratified his pride as a father, a master, and a towns- man, and it did not in the least degree awaken his jealousy as a rival artist.. Nothing dis- turbed his serenity but pretensions put forward by others, perhaps by his surly neighbour Herrera who had certainly good foundations for pretensions, to the honour of having been the master of Velazquez. 'lam justified,' he wrote many years afterwards, ' in resisting the insolent attempts of some who would attribute this glory to themselves, taking from me the crown of my latter years. Nor do I consider it any disgrace for the master to be excelled by his scholar. Leonardo da Vinci lost nothing of his renown in having Rafael for a disciple, nor Giorgio de Castelfranco in Titian, 88 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. nor Plato in Aristotle, who never deprived him of the title of Divine!'^ In the first flush of his delight, he poured out the fulness of his heart in the following sonnet, which he addressed to Yelazquez. To place Philip IV. above Alexander is a piece of flattery sufficiently intrepid. But in justice to the goodnatured poet, let it be remembered, that our queen Katherine Parr, in a devotional treatise, called Henry YIII. a second Moses ;- and that Dryden had the face to liken Charles II. of England to Hezekiah of Judah.^ The glory of Philip at least equalled the meekness of Henry, and the piety of Charles. Vuela, 6 joven valiente ! en la ventura De tu raro principio : la privanza Honre la posesion, no la esperanza D' el lugar que alcanzaste en la pintura: Animete 1' augusta alta figura D' el monarca mayor qu' el orbe alcanza, En cuyo aspecto teme la mudanza Aquel que tanta luz mirar procura. ^ Arte de la Pintura: p. loo. 2 * E mean ftp ti^ts i^opscs, luting l^tmia i^t lEigfit, mw moste aobtrawnc fabouratik EortJantil^usbantf,' ^zz. See ' Vi%t lEamentatioh of a Sinner, ti? tf)e most tertuous Xatfn ^ueen IJati^erinc, $cc. ; 8. Emprintetr at Xontfon, !)p 3lo]^n ^Itie, 1563.' Pages not numbered, but the above passage occurs in sheet E. i. * See the Threnodia A ugustalis. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 89 Al calor d'este sol tiempla tu vuelo, Y verds quanto extiende tu memoria La fama, por tu ingenio y tus pinceles, Qu' el planeta benigno d tanto cielo Tu nombre illustrar^ con nueva gloria Pues es mas que Alexandre y td su Ap61es.^ Speed thee ! brave youth, in thy adventurous race, Right well begun ; yet dawning hope alone No guerdon wins ; then up and make thine own Our painting's richest wreath and loftiest place. The form august inspire thee, and fair face Of our great king, the greatest earth hath known ; In whose bright aspect to his people sho\^Ti We fear but change, so perfect is its grace. Wing through the warmth of this our sun, thy flight ! So shall thy genius and thy pencil's fame To other days and men immortal shine. Touched with his royal rays' benignant light, And blent with greater Alexander's name. The glory of Apelles shall be thine. A longer _poem was written in praise of this l ucky port rait, by Don Geronimo Gonzalez de Villanueva, a ' florid wit' of Seville/ in which Philip was hailed as a Copi^ felix de Numa o de Trajano, and Velazquez was, of course, promised eternity of fame. Velazquez wa s formally -appoint f^d paintf>r- in- ^ Pacheoo: p. no. ' Pacheco, p. io6, where the poem is printed, and the poet styled 'florido ingenio Sevillano.' 90 YELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. vY' or^mryto_the_iing, on the 31st of October, 1623, with the monthly salary assigned to him in April, and the addition of payment for his works, and the attendance of the royal physician, surgeon, and apothecary. He was ordered to bring his family to Madrid, and received three hundred ducats to defray the expenses of re- moval. The king soon afterwards conferred on him a second pension of three hundred ducats, granted from some source that necessitated a papal dispensation, which was not obtained until 1626. In that year he was provided with apart- ments in the Treasury, which were reckoned worth two hundred ducats a year more. To port.rny the ray a] ff^,TrnTy_a^PTYia at this time to have been his chief duty; and he painted many pictures of the king, queen, and infants, in various attire. Of these the portraits of Philip and Ferdinand in shooting costume, with their dogs and guns, in the royal gallery of Madrid,^ are especially deserving of notice ; they are exe- cuted with that admirable and felicitous ease which vouches for the truth of the likeness; ^/' and they show that Ye^aziJ^ez adh^edto,natue as closely in painting a prince of the house of Austria as in painting a water-carrier of Seville, * Catal., Nos.^00 and 278. UI.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 91 or a basket of potherbs from the gardens of Alcaic Early in the year 1624 the king paid a visit to his southern provinces, and passed a few weeks in the Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra of Granada.^ It is probable Yelazquez remained at Madrid; otherwise Pacheco would doubtless have been the companion and chronicler of the royal progress, which he has passed over in silence. The eq\jestria^4)ortrait oflJEhilip_IV., now in the royal gallery of Madrid, seems to have been painted by Velazquez soon after his majesty's return. ^ Far more pleasing than any other representation of the man, it is also ^nejof the finestportraits in the world. The king is in the glow of youth and health, and in the full enjoyment of his fine horse, and the breeze blow- 1 He left Madrid on the 8th of February, and returned on the 19th of April; Joseph Ortiz y Sanz : Compendio Cronologico de laHutoria de Espana; 7 torn. 8vo. Madrid: 1796 1803 ; to- '^' P- 364. 2 Cataloffo, No. 299. But for Philip's formidable mous- tachios, I should suppose this to be the first celebrated portrait mentioned at p. 84, as Cean Bermudez seems to imply, when he says that its present companion piece (of the same size, ten feet nine inches high, by eleven feet three inches wide), Isabella on horseback, * sirve de compaflero al que pint6 del Rey a caballo, recien venido de Sevilla.' But as a boy of eighteen is seldom thus 'bearded like a pard,' I think this must be a later picture. 92 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. ing freshly from the distant hills; he weai-s dark armour, over which flutters a crimson scarf; a hat with black plumes covers his head, and his right hand grasps a truncheon. All the acces- sories, the saddle, embroidered breast-plate, and long sharp bit, are painted with the utmost care. The horse, evidently a portrait of some favourite of the royal stud, is bright bay, with a white face and white legs; his tail is a vast avalanche of black hair, and his mane streams far below the golden stirrup ;^ and as he springs into the air in a sprightly ballotade, he realizes Cespedes' poetical description,^ and justifies Newcastle's praise of the Cordobese barb, the proud king of horses, and the fittest horse for a king.^ ,-1 ^ In the same year his famous picture of the 4l_-.^opers, Los Behedores, or Los Borraclws, of the Spanish royal gallery, gave evidence that in painting princes he had not forgotten how to ^ Cumberland: Aivec. vol. ii. p. 15, remarks of Velaz- quez's horses, ' that there seems a pleonasm in their manes and tails that borders on extravagance.' But Velazquez was an Andalusian, and painted a horse according to the notions, not of Newmarket, but of Cordoba and Alairena, where extravagant manes and tails are to this day much admired. 2 Annals of Artists of Spain. Chap. vi. p. 341. 3 New Method^ kc. ; Address to the readers. III.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 93 paint ^lowns.^ It is a composition of nine figures, life size, representing a vulgar Bacchus, crowned with vine leaves, and enthroned on a cask, investing a boon companion with a similar Bacchic crown. This ceremony is performed, with true drunken gravity, before a party of rustics, in various stages of intoxication. One sits in a state of owlish meditation ; another has delivered himself of a jest which arrests the brimming bowl half-way to the lips of a third ruffian, and causes him to exhibit a set of ill- favoured teeth in a broad grin ; a fourth, some- what behind, has stripped himself to the skin, like the president, and lolling on a bank, eyes his bell-mouthed beaker with the indolent satis- faction of a Trinculo. For forge of character, and_strerg th of colo uring, this picture has never 1 Catalogo, No. 138. The lively M. Viardot, Musiea d^Espagne, &c., p. 152, notices the admiration in which this picture was held by Sir David Wilkie, who, he says, preferred it to all the works of Velazquez, at Madrid. ' Chaque jour, quelque f(it le temps, il venait au musee, il s'^tablissait devant son cadre cheri, passait trois heures dans un silencieuse extase, puis, quand la fatigue et I'ad- miration I'epuisaient, il laissait 6chapper un oufl du fond de sa poitrine, et prenait son chapeau. Sans etre peintre, sans 6tre Anglais, j'en ai presque fait autant que lui.' I find no mention, however, of the picture in Wilkie's Letters or Diary t printetl in his Life by Allan Cunningham, 3 vols. 8vo. London : 1843. 94 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. III. been excelled ; and its humour entitles Yelazquez to the name of the Hogarth of Andalusia. It has been engraved by Carmona, and etched by Goya, and after his etching by Adlard.^ In subject, treatment, and colouring, it bears a strong re- semblance to the ' Drunken Silenus and Satyrs,' the famous work of Ribera, in the royal gallery at Naples. As this picture was painted two years later, in 1626,2 the Yalencian may perhaps have had the subject suggested to him by the work of the young Castillian, from whom it ia not impossible he may even have boiTOwed some hints. The original sketch of Velazquez's compo- sition, now at Heytesbury house, Wilts, certainly found its way to Naples, where it was purchased by its present possessor, lord Heytesbury. It bears the signature Diego Velazqitez, 1624, and is finely coloured, but contains only six figures, one of which, a hideous negro boy, is omitted with advantage in the larger composition. ^ For the Annals of the Artists of Spain. 2 It is signed and dated. Stan. d'Aloe ; Naples, ses monumens, &c. i2ino. Naples : 1852. p. 501. rK^>;:f the "Esonrial, upon which he was at this time employed. Juan Bautista Mayn(i.(i569 1649), ^ Dominican friar, had been one of the favourite scholars of_^ElGreco, at Toledo. Philip III. made him drawing-master to his son, afterwards Philip lY., who was very fond of him, and placed him in the same capacity over his own heir apparent, Balthazar Carlos. He painted for the royal palaces many pictures, some of which are now in the queen of Spain's gallery. Of these the best is the allegorical composition IV.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS VORKK. 101 called the ' E-eduction of a province in Flanders.' Philip IV. stands in the foreground, receiving a laurel crown from Minerva, and attended by Olivares; by a daring fiction, rebellion and heresy lie vanquished, kissing the ground be- neath their feet, while a loyal multitude, in the distance, gaze with dutiful admiration at the royal portrait displayed to them by a general officer. The heads are well painted ; and there is some force in the sober colouring; although the picture is far from deserving such epithets as * stupendous and amazing,' applied to it by the good-natured Palomino.^ Yelazque^ _gained a. complete vic tory over his ^ m ore ex pe rien cedxompetitors. He received the prize, and his picture of the * Expulsion of the Moriscos,' was hung in the great hall of the Alcazar. In the centre of this composition, ^ in which Velazquez was degraded by the evil spirit of the age into a panegyrist of cruelty and wrong, appeared Philip III., mean in figure, and foolish in face, pointing with his trun- cheon to the sea, where ships were riding, and whither some Christian soldiers were con- ducting a company of Moors and their weeping ^ Palomino, torn. ilL p. 456. lOl' VELAZQUT-Z AXD HIS WORKS. [cH. women and children; and on his right, Spain in the form of a stately dame, armed in Koman fashion, sate at the base of a temple, benignly- smiling on the oppressors. On a pedestal, the following inscription explained the subject of the picture, and a bigot's notions of piety and justice, peace and good will to men. PHTLIPPO III. HISPAN. REGI CATHOL. REGVM PIENTISSIMO, BELGICO, GERM. AFRIC. PACIS, ET JVSTITI.E CVLTORi; PVBLIC^ QVIETIS ASSERTORI ; OB ELIMINATOS F^LICITER MAVROS, PHILIPPVS IV. ROBORE AC VIRTVTE MAGNVS, IN MAGNIS MAXIMVS, AD MAIORA NATVS, PROPTER ANTIQ. TANTI PARENTIS ET PIETATIS, OBSERVANTI^QVE ERGO TROPHCEVM HOC ERIGIT ANNO M.DC.XXVII. On a label beneath, was the signature of the painter : DIDACVS VELAZQVEZ HISPALENSIS. PHILIP. IV. REGIS HISPAN. PICTOR. IPSIVSQVE JVSSV FECIT ANNO M.DC.XXVII. It is probable that the picture perished in the fire of the Alcazar, in 1735.^ Notwithstanding its ^ No mention of this famous painting is to be found, in Ponz, torn. ii. pp. 2 79, wher^ the new palace of Madrid is described at great length, nor in the Viage de Espaiia, &c,, por. D. Nic. de la Cruz, condede Maule, 14 tomos, 8vo, Cadiz, 1812, torn. xi. p. i 27. Cumberland omits it in his catalogue of the pictures there; and his description of it in the Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 18, is, like my own, borrowed from IV.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 103 interest and traditional merits as a specimen of art, it is the work of Velazquez that may be spared with the least reluctance by those who hold in just abhorrence the last and wickedest of the crusades. Besides the post of usher , the king gave Velazqiiez the rank of gentleman of the cham- ber, with its emoluments of 12 reals a-day,^ and the annual allowance of 90 ducats for a dress. Nor was his bounty confined to the artist himself; he bestowed on his father, Don Juan Rodriguez de Silva, three legal appointments in the government offices at Seville, each worth 1000 ducats annually. In the summer of 1628, Rubens came to Madrid as envoy from the archduchess infanta Isabella, governess of the Low Countries. He and Velazquez had exchanged letters before they met, and they met predisposed to become friends. The frank and generous Fleming, in the matu- Paloraino, torn, iii., p. 486. Cean Bermudez neither enu- merates it amongst the works of Velazquez extant in his day, nor accounts for its disappearance ; and Don Jose de Madrazo, director of the royal gallery of Spain, to whom I applied for information, had neither seen the picture nor ascertained its fate. ^ In this Palomino is confirmed by the Fnventaire r/^neral des plus curieuses reckerche dea royaumes (VEspayne, 4. Paris: 16 15, p. 163. 104 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. rity of his genius and fame, could not but look with interest on the young Spaniard, much akin to him in disposition, talents, and accomplish- ments, and destined, like him, to lead the taste of his country and extend the limits and renown of their common art. The Spaniard could not fail to value the regard, and seek the society of one of the most famous painters and worthiest men of the age. He became the companion of the artist-envoy's leisure, he led him to the churches and galleries, and showed him the glories of the Escorial. There, in the grand refectory or in the prior's chamber of the match- less monastery, pausing before Titian's 'Last Supper,' and the * Pearl' of Rafael the chiefs of Flemish and Castillian painting did homage to the sovereign masters of Italy. "R.n ben s' mission to Spain detained him for nine months at Madrid. He skilfully opened his negotiations by presenting eight of his pic- tures to the picture-loving king, who, though slow in entering upon his diplomatic business, immediately sat to him for an equestrian por- trait, which Lope de Yega made the subject of a complimentary poem.^ He painted four other ^ Obras sueltas, 7i torn. 4. Madrid: 1776 9, i. p. 256. IV.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 105 portraits of the king, and also portrayed every other member of the royal family, for his mistress the archduchess. Of the archduchess Margaret, daughter of the emperor Maximilian, and grand- daughter of Charles Y., who had taken the veil in a convent of barefoot nuns at Madrid, with the name of sister Margaret of the Cross, he painted a portrait somewhat larger than half length, and made several copies of it. He also painted a large picture of Philip II. on horse- back, with the sickly countenance of his old age, with a figure of Victory leaning from a cloud and crowning him with laurel ; a stiff and un- gainly picture, and one of the worst he ever executed. Whilst he was thus employed, nc^ day passed without a visit from the king, who loved to converse with his artists as they worked, and who impressed the acute Fleming, as he after- wards impressed lord Clarendon,^ with a favour- able opinion of his intellectual powers. 'Well gifted both in body and mind,' says Rubens, in one of his letters,^ ' this prince were surely capable of ruling, in good or evil fortune, did he ^ Hut. of the Rebellion, vol. vi. p. 385. *Gachet: Lettres de Rubens, 8vo. Bruxelles: 1846; p. 226; from Gachet's translation of the original Flemish. 106 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. rely more on liimself, and defer less to his ministers; but now he pays for the credulity and follies of others, and is the victim of a hatred in which he has no concern,' ^the personal ani- mosity of Buckingham and Olivares. His rapid pencil was interrupted during his stay at Madrid not only by the affairs of his mission, but by attacks of fever and gout. Nevertheless, besides the royal portraits, he found time to make careful copies of some of Titian's pictures, sarcastically styled in after days, by Mengs, his translations from the Italian into Dutch; to paint several works for private collectors and public institutions; and to en- large the canvas and add several figures, including an excellent portrait of himself on a bay horse, to the composition of his grand ' Adoration of the kings,' now in the queen of Spain's gallery. That gallery still possesses sixty-two of his pic- tures ; and Spain at one time was perhaps richer in fine specimens than Flanders itself. The ' Garden of Love,' ' Rodolph of Hapsburg giving his horse to the host-bearing priest,' and many others in the royal collection at Madrid, are little inferior, as pieces of narrative painting, to the celebrated works which are the glory of Antwerp. The museum at Yalladolid still pre- IV.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 107 serves his three large altarpieces presented to the Franciscan nunnery of Fuensaldaiia by the count of the same name, and somewhat over- praised by Ponz as his best pictures in the peninsula. Many of the greatest efforts of his genius now in England were brought from Spain by the military robbers of France, or by picture dealers who followed in their wake. The ' Lion Hunt,' now lord Ashburton's,^ once adorned the Leganes and Altamira galleries. The gigantic compositions in the collection at Grosvenor house, filled with brawny sons and flabby daughters of Anak, were painted by order of Olivares, and hung by him in the lofty church of the nunnery at Loeches. Lord Radnor ^ has an interesting landscape, of which Rubens may have made the sketch during a ramble with Velazquez. It is a view of the Escorial, as seen from the hill behind. The solitary monk, the wooden cross, and the passing deer in the fore- ground, the rocky hills around, and the cold grey skies above, are in admirable keeping with the solemn and suggestive scene. 1 At Bath House, Piccadilly. * At Longford Castle, Wilts. \o.A.O/ THE advice and example of Rubens increased the desire long entertained by Yelazquez to / visitjtaly. After many promises and delays, the king at last consented to the journey, giving him leave of absence for two years, without loss of salary, and a gift of 400 ducats. The count- duke, at parting, made him a present of 200 ducats, and a medal of the king, and furnished him with many letters of introduction. With his trusty Pareja for a follower, he sailed on the I oth of August, 162 9,..fromBarcelona, in the com- pany of the great captain Ambrosio Spinola, then on his way to govern the duchy of Milan, and command the Spanish and imperial troops before Casal.^ The pilgrim's first step on the promised land of art, was on the stately quays of Yeniee. He was honourably received in that city by the ambassador of Spain, who lodged him in his palace and entertained him at his own table. ^ Dunlop's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 143. CH. v.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 109 The Republic of the hundred isles had now de- clined into th esilver age o f her arts as well as of her power. The bold spirit which had sustained and repelled the shock of the Leaguers of Cambray had departed from her councils. No longer were Le donne, i cavalier, Panne, gli amori, of the great old houses, painted by Giorgione, Titian, Pordenone, Paul Caliari, or Tintoret ; the close of the last century had seen extin- guished the last star of that glorious constella- tion. Their successors, feeble if not few, lived upon the ideas and the fame of the former age. Of these, Alessandro Yarotari, known as II Pa- dovanino, was one of the most considerable ; he affected in his works the spacious banquet-halls, and imposing figures, the sumptuous draperies and snarling dogs, in uso Paolesco ; and the * Marriage of Cana,' esteemed his master-piece, had somewhat of the grandeur of the Veronese.^ Pietro Liberi was commencing his career as a painter of altar-pieces, which faintly reflected the style of Titian, and of naked Venuses, which gained him the name of Libertino. Turchi, perhaps the ablest of the band, who had painted much and tolerably well, for the city churches, was ^ Lanzi, torn. iii. p. 227. 110 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. now residing at Rome. The degenerate age of the dark colourists, the tenehrosi, had already begun to cast its gloom over the art of the island-city. Such being the state of Venetian painting at this time, Velazquez conversed, during his stay, rather with the mighty dead than with the living mas- ters of his profession. In the cathedral of St. Mark and its subject churches, in the palace of the doge, and in those of the great patricians, he found many new motives for that admiration of Giorgione, Titian, and their fellows, which he had already learned at the Escorial. He jpent his time^iefly in making copies of the .jXLaEe_re2 markable pictures, amongst others, of Tintoret's 'Crucifixion' and 'Last Supper,' the latter of which he afterwards presented to the King of Spain. His studies were, however, disturbed by the war of the Mantuan succession, then raging in Lombardy. The hostile troops of France, or the friendly forces of the emperor and the ca- tholic king, equally dangerous to the peaceful traveller, hovered so near the city, that in his excursions he always went attended by a guard of the ambassador's servants. Fearing lest the communication with Rome might be cut ofi*, he left Venice, though with reluctance, about the end of the year, and proceeded to F^rara. In v.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. Ill that ancient city he presented his letters to the ruling legate, cardinal Giulio Sachetti, who formerly had been nuncio to Spain, and who, afterwards, unsuccessfully contested the keys of St. Peter with Giovanni Battista Panfili, Inno- cent X.^ His eminence received the king of Spain's painter with the utmost courtesy, lodg- ing him in his palace, and even inviting him to his table, an honour which Velazquez, not being prepared for such a condescension from a prelate with a red hat, respectfully declined. A Spanish gentleman of the household was, however, ap- pointed to wait upon him during his two days' sojourn, and show him the pictures of Garofalo, and other wonders of Ferrara ; and his farewell interview with the legate, who loved or affected to love Spain, lasted for three hours. Horses were provided for his journey to Bologna, and his Spanish friend accompanied him as far as Cento, a distance of sixteen miles. The fine school of Bologna hardly detained ^ La giusta statera de Porporati ; 12. Genevra : 1650, p. 92. This curious and scurrilous volume has been translated byHughCogan; The Scarlet Gown ; ^yo. London: 1653. Sachetti made so sure of being chosen, that it was said of him, after the election of Innocent X., in a pasquinade of the day 'He that entered the conclave pope, came out cardinal,' p. 96. 112 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. him in that city; and although he had letters for the cardinals Nicolas Lodovisi and Balthasar Spada, he suppressed them, fearing the delay that might be caused by their civilities. Taking the way of Loretto, the more pious if the less direct road, he hurried forward to Rome. From the celebrated shrine of Our Lady, the journey across the Apennine could not fail to delight his fine taste and cultivated intellect. He was ad- vancing towards the eternal city, amidst the monu- ments of her ancient and modern glory. The old gate of Spoleto, whence Hannibal, fresh from Thrasymene, was repulsed, and the aqueduct, se- cond only to that of Segovia ; the bridge of Augus- tus, at Narni, and the delicate temple of Clitum- nus, lay almost beside his path to the Pantheon and the Flavian A mphitheatre. The little town of Foligno afibrded him a foretaste of the Vatican, in that lovely Madonna of Rafael, then in the convent of the Contesse, and still known in the papal gal- lery as the Virgin of Foligno. And Velazquez, happily, was in a condition to enjoy these things ; to indulge all the emotions of an accomplished mind, as the landmarks, new and yet fami- liar, appeared, and as the dome of the great Basilica, rising above the classic heights around, harbingered the mother- city of his art and his v.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 113 faith. Unlike most painters, he entered these sacred precincts with a name and a position already established, moved perhaps by hopes of higher distinction, but with no fears of failure to disturb his serenity, no visions of penury To freeze the genial current of his soul. In far different circumstances, and with different feelings, that road had been traversed, but a few years before, by two brethren of his craft, who were to become his equals in renown, Nicolas Poussin, an adventurer fresh from his Norman village, and Claude Gel^e, a pastry-cook's run- away apprentice from Lorraine. The papal chair was, at this time, filled by Urban VIII., Maffeo Barberini, a pontiff chiefly remarkable for his long incumbency of that splendid preferment, his elegant Latin verses,^ and two works executed at his cost from the de- signs of Bernini, the grand high altar of St. Peter's, and the Barberini palace, for which the Coliseum served as a quarry, 2 He and his car- 1 They found an English editor above a century ago. Maphcei S. R. E. Card. Barberini postea Urban P. P. VIII. Poemata. Prcemissis quibusdam de vita auctoris et annota- tionibus adjectis. EdiditJosephusBrown, A.M. Coll. Regin. Oxon. 8vo, Oxon. 1726; is a handsome volume. ^ Hence the Roman saying, ' Quod non fecerunt Barbari I 114 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. dinal-nephew, Francesco Barberini, received Yelazquez very graciously, and offered him a suite of apartments in the Vatican ; which the artist humbly declined, contenting himself with less magnificent lodgings, and the right of access, granted as soon as asked, at his own hours to the papal galleries. There he applied himself with great diligence to study, and, with his crayon or colours, culled some flowers from the new world of painting which now burst upon his gaze. Michael Angelo's ' Last Judgment,' in the Sistine chapel, scarce ninety years old, was yet undimmed by the morning and evening in- cense of centuries. Of this he copied many por- tions, as well as the Prophets and the Sybils ; and he copied, also, the Parnassus, Theology, Burn- ing of the Borgo, and other frescos of Rafael. Happier than Venice, Home at this epoch could^boast more^a^stic_taJnt_fehanJiaxLheen found^jwithin^ her _walls at one ti me since the days of Michael Angelo. Many of the Bolognese masters were sojourning for a season, or had fixed their abode, in the capital. Domenichino fecere Barberini.' The Faxnese, Paul III. and his nephews, were, however, the first and greatest destroyers. Gibbon's Decline and Fall. 8 vols. 8vo. London: 1828; vol. viii. p. 461. v.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 115 and Guercino were now engaged on some of their best works, the 'Communion of St. Jerome,' and the ' Finding of the body of St. Petronilla ;' the Grotto Ferrata, and the Lodovisi frescos. Guido Reni alternated between the excitements of the gaming table, and the sweet creations of his smooth-flowing pencil. Albani, the Ana- creon of painting,^ was adorning the halls of the Borghese and the Aldobrandini with cool forest glades, peopled with sportive loves and graces. The great landscape painters of France, Poussin and Claude, were laying the foundations of their delightful and fertile schools. Beautiful foun- tains, palaces, and churches, rising in all quarters of the city, displayed the architectural genius of Bernini, the Mend of popes, the favourite of princes, and the most busy and versatile of men.^ This society of able artists was unhappily divided, by ignoble jealousies and personal quarrels, into ^ Lanzi : Storia Pittorica, torn. v. p. 105. * Evelyn, in his Diary at Rome 1644, notices Bernini as a * sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, who, a little before my coming to this citty, gave a publiq opera, (for so they call shews of that kind) wherein he painted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the engines, composed the musiq, writ the comedy, and built the theatre.' Memoirs and Diary of John Evelyn. 5 vols. 8vo. London: 1827; vol. i. pp. 189, 190. I 3 116 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. many factions; from which Yelazquez stood aloof, without avoiding the society of the better spirits of the band. Attracted, as spring advanced, by the airy and agreeable situation of the Yi lla-Medici, built on the ancient gardens of Lucullus, he obtained permission from the Tuscan government, through the good offices of the tasteful count of Monterey, ambassador of Spain, to take up his quarters there for a season. This villa, hanging on the wooded brow of the Pincian hill, commands from its windows and garden-Belvedere, the whole circuit of the city, the Campagna bestrode by hoary aqueducts, and the yeUow windings o f the Anio and the Tiber. It contained, at this time, a noble collection of antique marbles, and the stranger from the land of painted wooden sculpture, lodged under the same roof with the peerless Yenus of Adrian and the Medici. Bought thirty-seven years afterwards by Colbert, for the French Academy of Painting founded by Louis XIY., this temporary residence of Yelazquez has since been the home of most of the great artists of France, during their student days, since the time of Poussin. Its beautiful garden, long a fashionable resort, has noAv fallen into comparative neglect; but the lover of v.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 117 scenery and meditation, once attracted thither, will find his 'due feet never fail* to linger, at noon beneath the alleys of tufted ilex, or at sunset, on the crumbling terrace, while twilight closes over the city and its giant dome. From this pleasant retreat Velazquez was driven, at the end of two months, by an attack of tertian fever, induced by the malaria which in the warm season hangs round the heights of Rome, and renders the Pincian villas pernicious to foreign constitutions. He was carried down into a lodging in the city, near the palace of Monterey, who showed him unremitting kind- ness and attention, causing him to be attended, free of cost, by his private physician, and supply- ing him with all necessary comforts from his own house. YelazQuez, at this^jinie,_lived for nea rly^ a year at_^;Ome. He went thither to study the great masters, and he appears to have studied them diligently; but, like Rubens, he_copied / tljpir works, an d no ted their_style, and adhered to his own. The oak had shot up with too vigorous a growth to be trained in a new direc- tion. "While at Rome, he seems to have painted only three original pictures: an excellent por- 118 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. trait of himself for Paclieco,^ and the ' Fo rge of Yulcan,' and ' Joseph's Coat,' which are amongst the most celebrated of his works. The Forge is a large composition, on a canvas ten feet and a half wide by eight feet high, of six figures, by which his skill in anatomy is fully proved. It represents Vulcan in his cavern, sur- rounded by the Cyclops, hearing from Apollo the tale of the infidelity of Yenus. Had the speaker been conceived and painted with as much force and truth as his auditory, this pic- ture would have been unexcelled in dramatic effect by any production of the pencil. But unhappily the Delian god fulgente decorus arcu Phcebus, ^ is wanting in all the attributes of beauty and grace with which poetry has invested him, and as he stands, pointing with his upraised finger, he might be mistaken, but for his laurel crown and floating drapery, for some common-place yoimgster, tell- ing some common-place story. Beneath the shadow of the Vatican, and with the models of Phidias and Bafael at hand, it is difficult to understand how Velazquez came to paint an ^ Pacheco, p. 105. 2 Horat. Car. S/ J- spmr^ rl j onrnpy t o Tt^ily-j to CoUect WOrks of art, partly for the royal galleries, and partly for the academy which Philip desired to establish at Madrid.^ His orders were to purchase every- thing that was to be sold, that he thought worth buying a commission suf&ciently large and con- fidential. Leaving the capital in November, attended as usual by his faithful Pareja, he crossed the Sierra Morena, and took shipping at Malaga. He embarked in the train of Don Jayme Manuel de Cardenas, duke of Naxera and Maqueda, who was on his way to Trent, to re- ceive the archduchess Mariana, whom Philip lY. had selected for his new queen. They sailed on the 2nd of January, 16&9, but were so delayed by contrary winds, that they did not land at 1 Page 54. CH. VII.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 153 G enoa until the nth of February.^ There Ve- lazquez spent some days exploring the churches and galleries, and enjoying the beauty of the city and its shores. In those sumptuous palaces, hung on breezy terraces over the blue haven, in which his friend Rubens had been a welcome guest, he improved his acquaintance with the works of Vandyck, who, thirty years before, had been welcomed to the proud city by the Balbi and the Spinole. Nor was Genoa, at this time, wanting in good native artists. The elder Castiglione, remarkable for his industry and versatile powers, was daily adding to his reputation by new altar-pieces, studies of animals, and pictures of classical story.^ From the school of Strozzi, the refractory Capuchin, better known as II Prete Genovese, had issued Giovanni Fer- rari, who excelled his master as a painter of sacred subjects,^ and his scholar, Giov, Carbone, executed portraits somewhat in the manner of Vandyck.* Velazquez next visited Milan, also untrodden ^ Hier. Mascareflas : Viage de la Reyna Dona Mariana de Austria kasta Madrid dea de Viena. 4. Madrid: 1650. * Soprani : Pittori Oenovesi, p. 223. 3 Id., p. 255. * Lanzi, torn. v. p. 328. 15i VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [cH. ground. Here he found the school of Lombardy but poorly represented by Ercole Proccaccini, the last of a race which had produced painters for five generations. But the Borromean Gallery, with its treasures of ancient art, was there to in- struct and delight him ; and above all, the ' Last Supper,' of Leonardo da Yinci, in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Gratie. Proceeding on his journey, without waiting for the feasts and pa- geants with which Milan celebrated the arrival of the imperial bride in her triumphal progress to the Spanish throne, he went to Padua, and thence to Venice. In the city of St. Mark, he remained for some weeks, refreshing his recollec- tion of the works of the great painters, and when he could, buying them for his master. His principal purchases were Tintoret's pictures of the ' Israelites gathering Manna,' the ' Conversion of St. Paul,' the ' Glory of Heaven,' a sketch for his great work, and the charming 'Yenus and Adonis' of Paul Yeronese. His next halting- place was Bologna, a city tlirough which he had hurried in his first journey. ^ Here time had left very few of that goodly company of painters trained by the Caracci. Alessandro Tiarini, one VII.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 155 of the ablest of Lodovico's followers,^ was still alive ; but his pencil had lost its early force, and his style was declining into the feebleness of old age. But Colonna and Mitelli, the flower of a later generation, and the best fresco-painters of the day, were now at the height of their fame ; and their works so pleased Yelazquez, that he invited them to enter the service of his master. During his stay at Bologna, he lived in the palace of the count of Sena, who went out, with many gentlemen of the city in their coaches, to meet him on his arrival, and who treated him with the utmost distinction. Whilst in the north of Italy, he visited the court of his former sitter the duke of Modena,^ head of the illustrious and beneficent house of Este. That prince received king Philip's painter very graciously, and as an old friend; he invited him to the palace, and he showed him his noble picture gallery, in which Yelazquez had the satisfaction of finding the portrait of his high- ness which he had painted at Madrid. Here he likewise saw the fine works of Correggio, now at Dresden ; the * St. Sebastian,' the ' Nativity,' better known as * La Notte,' which the duke was 1 Lanzi, torn. v. p. 139. * Page 130. 156 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. suspected of having caused to be stolen from a church at Reggio ;^ and the ' Magdalene,' which the princes of Este were wont to carry with them on their journeys, and which the king of Poland kept under lock and key, in a frame of jewelled silver. ^ He was likewise sent by the duke to see his country house, a few leagues from Modena, which had lately been adorned with sprited frescos by Colonna and Mitelli. At Parma, Velazquez saw the master-pieces of Correggio in their perfection. The frescos in the cathedral and the church of San Giovanni, had not been painted more than a hundred and twenty years ; and the domes of these temples revealed many noble forms and sweet faces, which the incense and neglect of centuries have now covered with an impenetrable veil. He likewise visited Florence, then, as now, abounding with works of art, but not very rich in artists. Of the latter, the most noted were Pietro da Qprtona, who frequently lived at Rome, and painted with ease and grandeur; and the melancholy Carlo Dglae, devoted, like the severe early 1 Sketches of the Lives of Correggio and Parmegiano (a book attributed to Archdeacon Coxe); 8vo., London, 1823, p. 85. * Id., p. 127. VII.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 157 masters, to sacred subjects/ which he repre- sented with that cloying sweetness of style which distinguishes him among modern pain- ters. Salvator Rosa was at this time in the service of the grand duke, and he may have entertained Yelazquez at some of his dramatic symposia, a favourite resort of the wits and nobles of Florence. ^ Passing through Rome, the Spaniard hastened to Na^s, where he found the kingdom slowly recovering, from the fever into which it had been thrown by Masaniello and the duke of Guise, under the bleedings and purgings of the count of Oiiate, the most vigorous of viceroys, and the sternest of state-surgeons.^ He was kindly re- ceived by that statesman, with whom he had orders to confer on the subject of his artistic mission. He also renewed his acquaintance with Ribera, who was still basking in viceregal favour, and the leader of Neapolitan art. These objects attained, he returned to Rome. Innocent X., Giovanni Battista Panfili, the reigning pontiff, preferred his library to his gal- leries, and was so keen a book-collector, that, ^ Lady Morgan: lAfe of Salvator Rosa ; 2 vols*. London, 1834, voL ii. p. 29. * Id., 35. ' Dunlop's Memoirs; vol. i. p. 478. 158 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. when cardinal, he was accused of enriching his shelves by pilfering rarities which he could not purchase. 1 He was, however, also a patron of art, and one of the five popes that caressed Ber- nini, whom he employed to complete the labours of ages by erecting the beautiful colonnade of St. Peter's. When Yelazquez arrived at Rome, he granted him an audience, and commanded him to paint his portrait; and the task being executed to his entire satisfaction, he presented the artist with a gold chain and medal of him- self The holy father, a man of coarse features and surly expression, and perhaps the ugliest of all the successors of St. Peter,^ was painted sit- ting in his easy chair j and the portrait was no less effective than that of admiral Pareja;^ for it is said that one of the chamberlains, catching a ^ D' Israeli : Curiosities of Literature, New Series, 3 vols. 8vo, 1824 ; vol. iii. p. 77. ^ His enemies in and out of the conclave which elected him, used to urge his extreme plainness as a reason against his being made father of the christian world. He was conscious of it himself ; saying to his mistress Olympia Maldachini, on an occasion of her presenting to hiln a loutish nephew, whom he afterwards made a cardinal, 'Never let me see this ugly whelp again ; he is even uglier and clumsier than I am.' Histoire de Donna Olympia Maldachini; trad. del'Italien de I'abbe Gualdi. i2mo. Leyde: 1666; pp.29, 77. 3 Page 133. VII.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. 159 glimpse of the picture through an open door leading from the antechamber, cautioned some of his fellow-courtiers to converse in a lower tone, because his holiness was in the next room. Of this portrait Velazquez executed several copies, one of which he carried to Spain. The original is probably that which remains in the possession of the family in the Pamphili-Doria palace at Rome : a fine repetition is now in the collection of the duke of Wellington at Apsley House. Velazquez also painted portraits of cardinal Pan- fili, the pope's nephew, and of Donna Olympia, the pope's sister-in-law and mistress, of several personages of the papal court, and of a lady whom Palomino calls Flaminia Triunfi, an excel- lent painter. Before taking in hand the sovereign pontiff, he threw oflf, by way of practice, a like- ness of his servant Pareja. This portrait, sent by the hand of the person whom it represented to some of his artist-friends, so delighted them, that they procured Velazquez's election into the aca- demy of St. Luke. Pareja's likeness, perhaps the fine portrait now in lord Radnor's collection,^ was exhibited with the works of academicians in the Pantheon, on the feast of St. Joseph, and was received with universal applause. An- At Longford Castle, Wilts. 160 VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. [CH. dreas Sclmiit, a Flemish landscape-painter, who was then at Rome, afterwards visited Madrid, and bore witness to the triumph of the Castillian pencil. During his residence at Rome, which extended to upwards of a year, Yelazquez appears to have mixed more than formerly in general society. The cardinal-nephew, his old friend cardinal Barberini,^ cardinal Rospigliosi, and many of the Roman princes, loaded him with civilities. And his business being rather to buy pictures than to paint or copy them, he was courted and caressed not only by the great, but by the artists. Ber- nini, and the sculptor Algardi, were his friends, and Nicolas Poussin, Pietro da Cortona, and Matteo Prete, called II Calabrese. Bless' d with each talent and each art to please, and of a disposition so captivating as to disarm jealousy, the progress of Yelazquez in Roman society must have been a continued ovation. It would be pleasing, were it possible, to draw aside the dark curtain of centuries and follow him into the palaces and studios ; to see him standing by while Claude painted, or Algardi modelled, en- joying the hospitalities of Bentivoglio perhaps ^ Page 114. VII.] VELAZQUEZ AND HIS WORKS. IGl in that fair hall glorious with Guido's recent fresco of Aurora or mingling in the group that accompanied Poussin in his evening walks on the teiTace of Trinitk de' Monte. Although there can be no doubt that Velaz- quez visited and carefully studied all the chief monuments of painting which were to be found at Rome, there is evidence, even more direct than the evidence afforded by his own works, that he Tipvgf imVmg d his ttiitkI with thp. spirit pf fl.nf^jpnt. xX art, nor appreciated the genius of Rafael. It occurs in Marco Boschini's Chart of Pictorial Na.vigation, a dialogue in eight breezes,'^ a heavy and verbose panegyric, in which the dullest con- ceits that ever grew in the poetical garden of Marini, are engrafted on the vulgar dialect of the boatmen of the lagunes, and the degenerate painters of the day are lauded as princes of their art, and peers of Giorgione and Titian. Here the visit of Velazquez to Venice is recorded, and he is cited amongst the eminent foreign masters who preferred that school to all other schools of ^ Graham's Life of N. Poussin, p. 104. * La Carta del Navegarpitoresco, dialogo tra un Senator Venetian deletante e un 'professor de pitura, comparti in ot>^>^}m^^^ii^^^ CATALOGUE OF PKINTS AFTEE WOEKS OF VELAZQUEZ. (^^^^^^^^^^^ts^^ Abbreviations used in the following Catalogue. Line for Line Engraving. Etch. >> Etching. Mezzo. 5> Mezzotint: Litho. >> Lithograph. C.L. >> Coleccion lithographica de cuadros del Bey de Espana, 3 vols. ; large fol. Madrid, 1826, 1832. The name in italics which closes the notice of each print, is the name of the engraver. PRINTS AFTER WORKS OF VELAZQUEZ. Smi^ Sttbj^ris. Lot and his Daughters. Line. Ph. Triere. The picture was bought at the sale of the Orleans Gallery, in 1799, by Mr. Hope, for 500 guineas, and sold again in 18 16; Buchanan's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 146. It is now at lord North wick's, Thirlestane House, Cheltenham. The Finding of Moses. Line. De Launaylejeune. The picture is in England, at the earl of Carlisle's, Castle Howard, Yorkshire, from the Orleans Gallery, in which it was valued to the late lord Carlisle one of the purchasers of the collection, at 500 guineas ; Buchanan's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 146. The Coronation of Our Lady. Line, Paris. Massard. The Coronation of Our Lady. Litho. in C. L. No, ex. Madrid. P. S. Feillet. The Coronation of Our Lady. Litho., Paris. Llanta. The Coronation of Our Lady. Galerie Religieuse et Morale. Paris, No. 57. Litho Llanta. The Coronation of Our Lady. Paris, No. 106. Musie Chretien. Litho. .... Chevalier. 240 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS The Coronation of Our Lady. M. Reveil and Duchesne ; Musee de Peinture, vol. xiv,, small 8vo., Paris, 1853. Outline A. R. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 62. Our Lady in adoration. Etch. . . John Young. The picture is in England, at Philip John Miles's, Esq., Leigh Court, near Bristol. Adoration of the Wise Men. Litho. C. L. No. clxii. Madrid. Cayetano Palmaroli. The picture is at Madrid. Royal Museum, No. 167. Adoration of the Shepherds. Outline. . E. Ling^e. Adoration of the Shepherds. In Illustrated London News, Dec. 23, 1854 Unknown. Formerly in the collection of the count Aguila, at Seville, and afterwards in the Louvre, the picture is now in the National Gallery, London. Our Lord on the Cross. Line. Madrid. /. A. Salvador Carmona. Our Lord on the Cross. Madrid, 1776. Joaquin Ballester. Our Lord on the Cross. Litho. in the C. L. No. clxxxvi. Madrid F. Taylor. Head of Our Lord on the Cross, Etch, for the Annals of the Artists of Spain R. C. Bell. The picture was painted for the nunnery of San Placido at Madrid, and falling afterwards into the possession of the duke of San Fernando, was presented by him to Ferdinand VII. Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 5 1 . The Death .of St. Joseph. In Houghton Gallery, 2 vols . fol. London, 1788, voL ii.. No. 13. Line. Alex. Bannerman. The Death of St. Joseph. In some copies of the Houghton Gallery, vol. ii.. No. 13, instead of the print above men- tioned. London, 1780. Small, Line. . Michel. The Death of St. Joseph. Outline, in the Description de VEr- mitage, tom. ii. p. 60. . . . Unhnoxcn. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 241 The Death of St. Joseph. In Journal des Artistes, No. 6. Paris, 1841. Small Outline. . Madame Soy er. The saint is attended by Our Lord and the Virgin, some heads of angels seen above. Formerly in the Houghton Collection ; the picture is at St. Petersburgh, in the Imp. Gallery. Herm. No. 150. St. Antony the Abbot, and St. Paul the first hermit. Litho. C. L. No. xxxviii. Madrid. F. Blanchar. St. Anthony and St. Paul. M. Le Brun; Recueil de Gravures au trait d^aprds un choix des tableaux fait en Espagne, 2 vol., 8vo; Paris, 1809; where the subject is erroneously entitled *Elie et Elisee,' vol. ii. No. 129. Outline Le Brun. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 87. anb ^i^nxtB. Los Borrachos, the Drunkards. Line. M. Salvador Carmona. Los Borrachos. Litho. C. L. No. cvi. Madrid. A . Blanco. Los Borrachos. Etch. 1778, Madrid. , . F. Goya. Los Borrachos. Etch, for the Annals of the Artists of Spain. , . . . . . H. Adlard. Los Borrachos. Wood. In Art Journal, Dec. 1852, p. 363. B 242 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Los Borrachos. Wood, from the Histoire des Peintres de toutes les ecoles, par M. Charles Blanc. 4. Paris : 1852, No. 68 and 96. Los Borrachos. Wood. In C. Blanc's Hist, of Painters, trans, by P. Berlyn, pt. vii. p. 8. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 138. The Forge of Vulcan. Line, Madiid, 1798, Glairon. The Forge of Vulcan. Litho. Madrid, C. L. No. xvii. T. Jollivet. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 195. The Forge of Vulcan. In Reveil and Duchesne ; MusSe de Peinture, vol. xiv., sm. 8vo. Paris, 1833. Outline. A. E. The Surrender of Breda, known as El Cuadro de las Lanzas, Madrid, C. L. No. Lxxiv. . . . F. De Craene. The Surrender of Breda. In Reveil and Duchesne ; Musee de Peinture, vol. xiv. Outline. . . . A. R. The marquess Spinola receiving the keys of Breda from prince Justin of Nassau. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 319. Las Hilanderas, or the Tapestry Weavers. Line, Madrid, 1796 F. Muntaner. Las Hilanderas. In Reveil and Duchesne ; Musee de Peinture, vol. xiv., sm. 8vo. Paris. 1833. Outline. A. JR. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 335. Las Menihas, or the Maids of Honour. Velazquez painted the portrait of the Infanta Maria Margaret. Line, Ma- drid, 1799. P. Andouin. Las Menihas. In Reveil and Duchesne ; Musee de Peinture, vol. xiv., sm. 8vo. Paris. 1833. Outline. . A. R. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 243 Las Meninas. Etch., Madrid. . . . F. Goya. The plate of this rare etching was destroyed by the artist, who very justly considered it a failure. One impression is in the collection of Don Valentine Carderera at Madrid ; another was in that of the late lord Cowley. They were supposed by their pos- sessors to be the only impressions in existence. A third was purchased by Mr. Morse in Lon- don, at a sale of Spanish engravings, at Messrs. Christie & Manson's, March 14th, 1853. A fourth and curious example was seen in May, 1854, by Mr. Morse, in the Royal Gallery of Engravings at Berlin, a double one, i.e., a black impression on one side of the paper, and a red impression on the other. It had been obtained in Spain from the collection of Cean Bermudez. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 155. The Family of Velazquez, or, Des Mahlers Familie. Line, on a very small scale. . . . /. Kovatsch. The picture is at Vienna, Imp. Gal. Belvedere palace. Meeting of Artists. "Wood. In M. C. Blanc; Histoire des Peintres, and in the English translation Ad. Ligny. Meeting of Artists. Wood. In Art Jov/mal, 1852, p. 364. Unknown. The picture is at Paris, Louvre, Ecoles d* Italic et d-'Espagne, No. 557. It contains thirteen figures, amongst whom Velazquez is supposed to occupy the place to the extreme right of the composition, with Murillo, whose head only is visible, next him. Mars. Line, Madrid, 1 797. . . G. R. Le Villain. A naked figure, seated, with a helmet on his head, and, various pieces of armour on the ground at his feet. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 63. Mcenippus. Line, Madrid. . . . M. Esguivel. B 2 244 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Moenippus. Etch., Madrid, T778. . . F, Goya. An old man in a cloak, standing. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 245. Esop. Line, Madrid. . . . . M. Esquivel. Esop. Etch., Madrid, 1778. . . . F. Goya. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 254. Goya's original drawing for this etching is in the collec- tion of Mr. Morse, who purchased it at the same sale as the etching of the Meninas. Barbarossa, the Corsair. Line, Madrid, 1799. L. Croutelle. Barbarossa, the Corsair. Etch. . . . F. Goya. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 127, Fl Aguador de Sevilla. The Water Carrier of Seville. Line, Madrid. . ... Bias Amettler. El Aguador de Sevilla. Outline. . . E. Lingie El Aguador de Sevilla. In the Art Journal, Nov. 1852, page 334- Wood. El Aguador de Sevilla. "Wood, from the Histoire des Peintres, par Charles Blanc. El Aguador de Sevilla. Wood, from the History of Painters, &c. &c., translated from C. Blanc, London, 1853, part vii. p. 2. The picture, formerly in the royal palace at Madrid, is now in the collection of the duke of Wellington. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 2-ic5 Philip III. Litho.,C. L. No. Lxviii. Madrid. J. Jollivet. Philip III. Etch, 1778, Madrid. . . F.Goya. In armour, and on a cream or dun-coloured horse. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 230. Philip IV. Litho., C. L. No. vii. Madrid. /. Jollivet. Philip IV. Etch., 1778, Madrid. . . F. Goya. In armour, and on a bay horse. Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 292. Philip IV. Line, Florence. In Galleria Pitti, par Louis Bardi. . . . . . . L. Errani. Philip IV. Etch. In Miles Gallery. 4. London, 1823. John Young. Apparently a sketch of the above picture. In the possession of Philip John Miles, Esq., Leigh Court, near Bristol, Music Room, No. 56. Philip IV. on horseback. Line, Florence. Cosmus Mogalli. The picture is at Florence, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Imperial and Royal Gallery, p. 87. It has been attributed to Rubens, but it is now sup- posed to be the picture painted as a model for Tacca's bronze statue at Madrid. Philip IV. Line, Madrid. . . J. de Courhes. In armour, on horseback, holding a marshal's baton, and pointing to a battle in the background ; at top the words Philippus IIII. Hispaniar, Rex ; at bottom Imperium sine fine fides asserta parabit, Assero, et imperium, non mihi, sed fidei. Philip IV. in his youth. Litho. C. L. No. lv. Madrid. /. A . Lopez. Standing in sporting costume, a cap on his head, hands gloved, and in the right hand a fowling-piece ; a dog by his side, and a tree behind. Full length. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 200. 246 CATALOGUE OP PRINTS Philip IV. Line. Madrid, 1638. . Herman Panneels. In armour, study of his head; rich frame, with figures of Religion and Piety supporting a crown ; on scrolls above, the words A RELIGIONE MAGNVS ; on the base, DON FILIPE IIII. EL GRANDE. From the work of Juan Antonio Tapia y Robles ; Ilustracion del renombre de Grande. 4. Madrid : 1638. Philip IV. Line. Madrid, 1633. Pedro Perete, Matriti. Bust, order of Golden Fleece round his neck. Philip IV. Line. Madrid, 1657. Pedro de Villafranca. Bust, with badge of Golden Fleece ; on the frame, PHILIPUS IV. MAGNVS HISPANIARUM REX ; above, supported by cherubs, a crown and a shield, on which is a view of the interior of the Pantheon of the Escorial; below, abasement, with a bird's-eye view of the Escorial. For the work of F'" de los Santos ; Descripcion del Escorial. fol. Madrid : 1657. Philip IV. Line. Madrid: 1667. Pedro de Villafranca. Bust, much the same as the above ; but smaller in size, and different in its frame and ornaments. Below two crowns interlaced, an olive branch, and a pair of clasped hands, withthe inscription, ^TERN^ F(E- DERA PACIS. For the work of L. de Castillo; Viage del Rey Felipe IV; y desposono de la Infanta. 4. Madrid: 1667. Philip IV. Litho. Madrid. . . Francisco Garzoli. Bust, in black, with white collar; life size. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum. Cardinal Infant Don Ferdinand of Austria. Litho. C. L. No. XLV. Madrid. . . . Juan Antonio Lopez. Cardinal Infant Don Ferdinand of Austria. Etch. Madrid, 1778. F. Goj/a. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 247 Cardinal Infant Don Ferdinand of Austria, called by mistake Infant Don Carlos Balthasar. Wood. Art Journal, i8e,2, page 335. Cardinal Infant Don Ferdinand of Anstria. Wood. In Histoire des Peintres, par C. Blanc. Cardinal Infant Don Ferdinand of Austria. Wood. In C. Blanc's History of Painters, translated by P . Berlyn . The prince is in a sporting dress, with a fowling piece in his hand and a dog by his side. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 278. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos, Prince of Asturias, on his pony. Litho. C. L. No. i. Madrid. . /. JoUivet. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Mezzotint in 1774. R. Earlom, Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Etch, in 1778. F. Goya Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Wood, in Art Jowmal, 1852, page 362. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Wood, in Histoire des Peintres, par C. Blanc. The picture from which the above are taken is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 332, and there is a small repetition of it at Dulwich College. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos, on horseback, and attended by count-duke of Olivarea. Etch, in Grosvenor Gallery^ Dining Room, 142. . . >. John Young. The picture is in the collection of the marquis of Westminster. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. On a piebald horse. Etch. Unknown. A tower and a number of figures in the background. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Litho. C. L. No. li. Madrid. A. Blanco. In a shooting dress, with a dog. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 27a 248 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Litho. Madrid, C. L. No. lxxv. /. A. Lopez. In a dress richly embroidered with gold, and holding a carbine in his right hand. The picture is at Madrid, Eoyal Museum, No. 308. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos ; with gun ; full length , M. Le Brun ; Choix des Tableaux fait en Espagne; 1 vol., 8vo. Paris, 1809, vol. ii. No. 131. Outline. Le Brun. Infant Don Balthazar Carlos. Outline. . . Lange. Standing in armour, holding a baton in his right hand. From Les Principaux Tableaux du Musee Royal a la Haye, 1826, No. 97. The Spanish Prince, (Don Balthazar Carlos.) "Wood, from Art Journal, 1852, page 361, L' Infant, (Don Balthazar Carlos.) Wood, from Histoire des . Peintres, par Charles Blanc. . . /. Gauchard. Dressed in petticoats as a child, left hand resting on a sword, right hand holding a walking-stick. Infanlj Don Balthazar Carlos. Line, . Juan de Noort. Oval bust, in armour ; in a rich frame surmounted by a crown. From Christoval de Benavente y Bena- vides: Advertencias para Reyes principes y Em- baxadores. 4. Madrid, 1643. A book dedicated to the prince. Pope Innocent X. Line. London, 1820. /. Fittler. Pope Innocent X., a small unfinished etching. G. Warren. Pope Innocent X. In Houghton Gallery. Mezzotint. London, 1774. . . . . . Val. Green. The picture is in the Imperial Gallery, St. Petersburgh. Pope Innocent X. Bust within an oval. M. Le Brun ; Choix des Tableaux fait en Espagne; 2 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1899; vol. ii. No. 132. Outline . . Le Brun. A Cardinal. Bust, within an oval. Le Brun ; Clioix (les Tableaux fait en Espagne ;yo\. ii. No. 133. Outline. Le Brun. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 249 Don Gaspar de Guzman, count-duke of Olivares, on horse- back. Litho. C. L. No. iv. Madrid. . /. JoUivet. Count-duke of Olivares. Etch, in 1778, Madrid. F. Goya. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 177. Coimt-duke of Olivares ; head. Etch., ascribed to Velazquez. This rare and curious etching is at Berlin, in the royal collection of prints, where Mr. Morse saw it. He was told by the director that it was brought from Madrid, by M. de Werter, who obtained it from the collection of Cean Bermudez, who has not, however, mentioned it in his writings on Velazquez. Count-duke of Olivares. Bust. Madrid, 1638. Line. Herman Panneels. The dress is black, with a part of a large cross of Calatrava on the breast ; above the rich scroll frame garnished with olive-boughs, a scroll inscribed, SICVT OLIVA FRVCTIFERA, Psalm 51. On a piece of drapery attached to bottom of frame, Ex archetypo Velazquez, Herman Panneels, ft. Matriti, J 638. This very fine portrait, the best print of Olivares existing, was executed for the work of J. A. Tapia y Robles, Ilustracion del renombre de Grande. 4. Madrid, 1638. Count-duke of Olivares. Wood. In Illustrated London News, May 21, 1852. Standing in a black dress, with the green cross of Cala- trava on his breast, and in his right hand, which rests on a table, a long riding switch. Count-duke of Olivares. Large. Line. . P. Pontius. Oval bust, with ornaments by Rubens. Count-duke of Olivares; a small copy of above. Line. Cor. Galle, jun. Man ; standing with a staff in his hand, and an iron key on his breast ; on the ground some arras and balls ; in the distance a blazing ship. Line. 1799. Fosseyeux. 250 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Man. The same. Etch F. Goya. One of the rarest of Goya's etchings. Man. The same. Outline. . . . E. Lingee. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. it 7. Man in armour ; full length. M. Le Brun ; Choix des Tableaux fait en Espagne; 2 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1809, vol. ii. No. 1 30 ; absurdly called * perhaps a portrait of Cromwell.' Outline. . . . . Le Brun. Velazquez. Line. From Los Ilustres Espanoles. fol. Madrid, 1791. .... Bias Amettler. Velazquez. Line. For Annals of Artists of Spain. H. Adlard. This print was copied from the last. The picture pro- bably existed in Spain at end of last century ; but its present place has not been ascertained, Velazquez . Outline. .... John Bromley. From Mrs. O'Neil's Dictionary of Spanish Painters. Velazquez. Outline. . . . Lasinio Figlio. Velazquez. Litho C. Nanteuil. Plate 7, from Cours Elementaire de Bessin, par A. Etex. Velazquez. Litho. bust. . . . Mauvaisse. Velazquez. Rome. Line. . . Francisco Cecchini. Velazquez. French wood, bust. . . (Unknown.) The picture is at Florence in the Imperial and Royal Gallery degli Uffizi, in the Sala de' Pittori. It is three-quarters length ; and the painter's right hand rests on his hip, while the left is cut oflFby the frame. Except as regards the hands, it is nearly the same as that engraved in Los Espanoles Ilustres ; in which Velazquez holds in his right hand a brush, and his left a palette, Velazquez. Bust. Line. . . Girolamo Rossi. Velazquez. Etch. Rome, 1790. . . . Benon. Velazquez. Wood. From U Artiste. . De Ghouy. Velazquez. In D'Argenville ; Vie des Peintres ; i vol., Svo. Paris, 1762 ; ii. facing p. 24 t. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 251 Velazquez. Outline. . . . Lannio Figlio. The picture is at Florence, also in the Sala de! Pittori of the palace degli Uffizi. It is bust size, and ap- pears to have been painted when Velazquez was older ; it also differs from the other in the head being covered with a small skull-cap. Velazquez. Rome. Small, Line. Francesco CeccJdni. From a picture not known. Velazquez. Oval bust. Line. . . Aug. Esteve. Apparently taken from the portrait of Velazquez in Las Meninas. Velazquez. "Wood. On title-page of this work. Nichol. From a miniature in my possession, at Keir. Young Man. Bust, and full face. Line. Paris, 1846. Pannier. Young Man. Line. Paris. . . A. Masson. Young Man, from L' Artiste. . . . Unknown. Young Man. Line Unknown. Young Man. Wood, from Art Journal, 1852, p. 333. Young Man. Head. Life-size. Litho. . Malezieux. Young Man. Wood, from C. Blanc's Hist, des Peintres. J. Fagnion. The picture from which the above were taken was bought at Seville by Mr. J. F. Lewis, the eminent painter, and sold by him to Baron Taylor, by whom it was transferred to the Louvre, Gal. Esp. No. 300, where it was erroneously called the portrait of Ve- lazquez, a mistake which the numerous engravings will perpetuate. It was sold in London in 1853, with the rest of the Spanish collection of the ex-king Louis Philippe. Man. Head, in a fur cap. Etch., in Cfrosvenor Gallery. John Young. Erroneously supposed to be Velazquez himself. Drawing-room, No. 33. Man. Half-length. Line. Milan, 1826. L. Gruner. 252 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Young Man. Head, unknown, Lithe. Life-size. Unknovm. Man's Head, face somewhat turned away. London, 1773. Mezzotint. ..... Val. Green. Man in an OvaL Litho. Germany. . J. A. Mayr. Long hair, black dress, square collar standing out horizontal, one hand seen, and hilt of his sword. Man, in an oval. Etch, outline. . . N. Muxel. Unknown, though erroneously supposed to be Velazquez. The picture is in the possession of the duke of Leuch- tenberg. No. 97. Man ; lettered Ignoto No. i ; in Galleria Pitti, par Louis Bardi. Line. . .... Guadagnini. Man, in a cloak, three-quarters length; lettered Ignoto, No. 2 ; in Galleria Pitti. . . Delia Bruna. Man. Bust, within an oval. Litho. in chalk. Lor em Quaglio. In armour, plumed and jewelled cap, supposed, but- erroneously, to be TiUy. The picture is at the Royal Gallery of Munich. Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. Line. Salvador Carmona. Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. In Los Ilustres Lspaiioles. Brandi. Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. Bust within oval ; with lyre, mask, book, &c., beneath. In Parnaso Espanol, 9 vols, small 8vo. Madrid, 1768-78, iv., p. 186 Manuel Salvador Carmona. Luis de Gongora y Argote. Bust within oval ; with lyre, pipes, mask, &c., beneath. In Parnaso Bspanol, \di., p. 171. Line. . . Manuel Salvador Carmona. Luis de Gongora y Argote. In Los Ilustres Espanoles . Line. Bias Amettler, under the direction cf M. Salvador Car- mona. Juan de Pareja. Modele de Velazquez. Oval bust. Litho. Paris. ..... Gabriel Rolin. Male Dwarf. Line, Madrid, 1792. . F. Muntaner. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 253 Male Dwarf, Etched in 1778, Madrid. . . F.Goya. Sitting on the ground, turning over the leaves of a book. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 246. Male Dwarf. Line, Madrid, 1798. . . F. Ribera. Male Dwarf. Etched, Madrid, 1778. . . F.Goya. Male Dwarf. Wood, from Art Journal, 1852, p. 333. Male Dwarf. Wood. In C. Blanc's Hist, des Peintres. Unknown. With a beard ; in a red dress ; seated on the ground. . The picture is at Madrid, Koyal Museum, No. 255. Male Dwarf with mastiff. Line, Madrid. . Unknown. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 279. Boy of Villecas. Line, Madrid, 1792. . Bart. Vazquez. Boy of Villecas. Etch, in 1778, Madrid. , F.Goya. Boy of Villecas. Wood, for the Annals of Spain. A child sitting on the ground. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 284. Bobo de Coria. Idiot of Coria. Line. Madrid, 1797. L. Croutelle. A laughing idiot ; seated on the ground, with his hands clasped on one of his knees, at his side two gourds and a drinking-cup. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 291. Dofia Margarita of Austria, queen of Philip III., on a pie- bald horse. Etch. Madrid, 1778 . , F. Goya. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 234. Dofia Isabel of Bourbon, first queen of Philip IV., on a white horse. Etch. Madrid, 1778. . . F.Goya. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 303. Dofia Margarita Teresia Augusta Hispaniar. et Indiar. Regis Filia. Line. ..... Unknown, Three-quarters length, standing; left hand resting on table, on which is a crown. 254 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS Margarita Romanorum Imperatrix, nata regia Hispaniarum Infans. Half-length. Line. . Bartholome Kilian. Infanta Margarita Theresa. Line. Galerie Historique de Versailles, 2371 Conquy. Infanta Margarita Theresa. Mezzotint. . Unknown. Dona Juana Pacheco. Litho. C. L. No. Lxvi. Madrid. Henrique Blanco. Wife of Velazquez ; her face seen in profile, with black ribbons hanging from her head behind ; and holding in her left hand a book or portfolio. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 230. Lady with fan. Line. In the Galerie Aguado, par C. Gavard; fol. ; Paris, 1839. . . . Leroux. Lady with fan. Outline. In La Galerie de Lucien Buona- parte. Stanza 4, No. 36. 4. London, 18 12, Pistrucci. The picture, or a duplicate of it, is now in the collection of the duke of Devonshire. Arch of Titus at Rome. Litho., C. L. No. xci. Madrid. Asselineau. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. ti8. Fountain of Tritons, in garden at Aranjuez. Litho., C. L. No. Lxxxi. Madrid. . . . P. de Leopol. Fountain of Tritons. Woodcut in A nnals of A rtists of Spain. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 145. Avenue of the Queen at Aranjuez. Litho., C. L- No. cxv. Madrid. P. de Leopol. The picture is at Madrid, Royal Museum, No. 540. AFTER VELAZQUEZ. 255 g0iitjtful ani Sjraws |rints Holy Family. Litbo. in crayons. Tire du Cabinet de M. Denon. ...... Villain. Count Gondomar. Line . . . E. Cooper. Standing in a black dress, bis hat on, a large cbest close beside bim. The picture was formerly in the collection of tbe duke of Buckingbam, at Stowe, wbence it passed to tbat of Jobn Henry Gurney, Esq., M.P. at Catton, near Norwicb. Wben it was afterwards cleaned, at tbe left band comer of tbe picture, a large spotted dog appeared, lying down ; and on tbe pillar bebind, tbe following inscription became visible : Da la vida Osar morir. On tbe pillar to tbe right of tbe picture at tbe top was, fecit 162 1 ; below was Osar Morir Da la vida. In the Stowe catalogue tbe picture was ascribed to Velazquez, but tbe date is conclusive against its being bis work, which it does not resemble in style. Ferdinand II., Grand duke of Tuscany, and bis wife, Vit- toria della Rovere. Line. . . . Starling. Ferdinand II., Grand duke of Tuscany, and his duchess Vittoria della Rovere W. Holl. Certainly not by Velazquez, though possibly a copy of a picture by bim when at Florence. The picture is in the National Gallery, London. Philip IV. Line. .... Moncomet. Oval bust, surrounded with emblems ; order of the Golden Fleece round his neck. 256 CATALOGUE OF PRINTS. Don Balthazar Carlos. Line, Brussels, 1642. C. Gdlle. A sort of monumental slab, with a long inscription, beginning ' Posteritate Sacrum,' to him, himself standing in the left corner, with a gun in right hand and hunters and boars in foreground. Don John of Austria. Bust within oval; with a cornu- copia on each side above, and winged lions below. Unknown. This prince was the second Don John of Austria known in history, and the natural son of Philip IV, In this print he is in armour ; with very long hair hanging over a lace collar. Inscription on base, JOANNES AUSTRIACUS PHILIPPI IV. REGIS CATHOLICI FILIUS, &c. Don John of Austria. From the Galerie Hist, de Versailles, No. 2285. In armour ; three-quarters length. Duke of Segovia. Line. On horseback, with a baton in his hand, apparently directing a siege. Lady with hawk and boy. In Mrs. 0' Neil's Dictionary of Spanish Painters. Outline. . . Simmons. I -> CO CO CM in Q 0) DC 0) LJJ E ^ THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY r