assured at Seville. There his wife bore him two daughters—all his family so far as is known. The younger died in infancy, while the elder, Francisca, in due time married Bautista del Mazo. a painter, whose large family is that which is represented in the important picture in Vienna which was at one time called the “Family of Velazquez.” This picture is now by common consent given to Mazo. In the gallery at Madrid there is a portrait of Juana, his wife, holding a drawing-tablet on her knee. There was formerly in the possession of Lord Dudley another portrait of his wife by Velazquez, painted, perhaps, in the first year of their happy marriage. Of this early Seville manner we have an excellent example in “El Aguador” (the Water-Carrier) at Apsley House (London). Firm almost to hardness, it displays close study of nature. One can see in it the youthful struggle to portray the effects of light stealing here and there over the prominent features of the face, groping after the effects which the painter was to master later on. The brushwork is bold and broad, and the outlines firmly marked. As is usual with Velazquez at this time, the harmony of colours is red, brown and yellow, reminding one of Ribera. For sacred subjects we may turn to the “Adoration of the Magi” at Madrid, dated 1619, and the “Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus” in the collection of Don Manuel de Soto in Zurich, in both of which we have excellent examples of his realism. In the “St John in the Desert” we again find his peasant boy transformed into the saint.
But Velazquez was now eager to see more of the world. Madrid, with its fine Titians, held out strong inducements. Accordingly, in 1622, fortified with letters of introduction to Fonseca, who held a good position at court, he spent some months there, accompanied only by his servant. Here he painted the portrait of the poet Gongora, a commission from Pacheco, but the picture known by that name in the gallery at Madrid cannot with certainty be identified as Velazquez’s portrait; it is more probably by Zurbaran. The impression which Velazquez made in the capital must have been very strong, for in the following year he was summoned to return by Olivares, the all-powerful minister of Philip IV., fifty ducats being allowed to defray his expenses. On this occasion he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Next year (1624) he received from the king three hundred ducats to pay the cost of the removal of his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life. Weak and worthless as a king, Philip had inherited the art-loving propensities of his race, and was proud to be considered a poet and a painter. It is one of the best features of his character that he remained for a period of thirty-six years the faithful and attached friend of Velazquez, whose merit he soon recognized, declaring that no other painter should ever paint his portrait. By his equestrian portrait of the king, painted in 1623, Velazquez secured admission to the royal service with a salary of twenty ducats per month, besides medical attendance, lodgings and payment for the pictures he might paint. The portrait was exhibited on the steps of San Felipe, and was received with enthusiasm, being vaunted by poets, among them Pacheco. It has unfortunately disappeared, having probably perished in one of the numerous fires which occurred in the royal palaces. The Prado, however, has two portraits of the king (Nos. 1070 and io7i)in which the harshness of the Seville period has disappeared and the tones are more delicate. The modelling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip II., who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. In the same year the prince of Wales (afterwards Charles I.) arrived at the court of Spain. We are told that he sat to Velazquez, but the picture has disappeared.[1]
In 1628 Rubens' visited Madrid on a diplomatic mission for nine months, and Velazquez was appointed by the king to be his guide among the art treasures of Spain. Rubens was then at the height of his fame, and had undertaken as a commission from Olivares the large pictures which now adorn the great hall in Grosvenor House (London). These months might have been a new turning-point in the career of a weaker man than Velazquez, for Rubens added to his brilliant style as a painter the manner of a fascinating courtier. Rubens had a high opinion of the talent of Velazquez, as is attested by Fuensalida, but he effected no change in the style of the strong Spaniard. He impressed him, however, with the desire to see Italy and the works of her mighty painters. In 1627 the king had given for competition among the painters of Spain the subject of the Expulsion of the Moors. Velazquez bore off the palm; but his picture was destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734. Palomino, however, describes it. Philip III. points With his baton to a crowd of men and women driven off under charge of soldiers, while Spain, a majestic female, sits looking calmly on. The triumph of Velazquez was rewarded by his being appointed gentleman usher. To this was shortly afterwards added a daily allowance of twelve reals, the same amount as was allowed to the court barbers, and ninety ducats a year for dress, which was also paid to the dwarfs, buffoons and players about the king’s person—truly a curious estimate of talent at the court of Spain. As an extra payment he received (though it was not paid for five years) one hundred ducats for the picture of Bacchus, painted in 1629 (No. 1058 of the Madrid gallery). The spirit and aim of this work are better understood from its Spanish name, “Los Borrachos” or “Los Bebedores” (the Topers), who are paying mock homage to a half-naked ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. It is like a story by Cervantes, and is brimful of jovial humour. One can easily see in this picture of national manners how Velazquez had reaped the benefit of his close study of peasant life. The painting is firm and solid, and the light and shade are more deftly handled than in former works. Altogether, this production may be taken as the most advanced example of the first style of Velazquez. It is usual to divide his artistic career by his two visits to Italy, his second style following the first visit and his third the second. Roughly speaking, this somewhat arbitrary division may be accepted, though it will not always apply, for, as is usual in the case of many great painters, his styles at times overlap each other. Velazquez rarely signed his pictures, and the royal archives give the dates of only his more important works. Internal evidence and history, as regards his portraits, supply to a certain extent the rest.
In 1629 Philip gave Velazquez permission to carry out his desire of visiting Italy, without loss of salary, making him besides a present of four hundred ducats, to which Olivares added two hundred. He sailed from Barcelona in August in the company of the marquis de Spinola, the conqueror of Breda, then on his way to take command of the Spanish troops at Milan. It was during this voyage that Velazquez must have heard the details of the surrender of Breda from the lips of the victor, and he must have sketched his fine head, known to us also by the portrait by Van Dyck. But the great picture was not painted till many years later, for Spinola had fallen into disfavour at court. In Venice Velazquez made copies of the “Crucifixion” and the “Last Supper” of Tintoretto, which he sent to the king, and in Rome he copied Michelangelo and Raphael, lodging in the Villa Medici till fever compelled him to remove into the city. Here he painted the “Forge of Vulcan” (No. 1059 of the Madrid gallery), in which Apollo narrates to the astonished Vulcan, a village blacksmith, the news of the infidelity of Venus, while four Cyclops listen to the scandal. The mythological treatment is similar to that of the “Bacchus”: it is realistic and Spanish to the last degree, giving a picture of the interior of an Andalusian smithy, with Apollo thrown in to make the story tell. The conception is commonplace, yet the impression it produces is undoubted from the vividness of the representation and the power of expression. The modelling of the half-naked figures is excellent. Altogether this picture is much superior to the other work painted at the same time, “Joseph’s Coat,” which now hangs in the Escorial. Both these works are evidently painted from the same models.
- ↑ In 1847 Mr John Snare of Reading exhibited a picture which had come from the sale of Lord Fife in 1809, and which he maintained to be the long-lost work. This led to much controversy; but the claim was rejected by experts, and the picture is said to be now in America.
