Chapter 3

In this country one secures little more than a glimpse of the master's work. The National Gallery has nearly a dozen pictures, but there are certain questions about the authenticity of some of them, and the Philip in the Dulwich Gallery is rather more than doubtful. The Wallace Collection has a few beautiful examples of Velazquez, and after that there are about fifty private owners of pictures that cannot be readily seen. Perhaps a considerable proportion of these works would, if subjected to very careful scrutiny, reveal themselves as copies by Mazo or others. In France there are half-a-dozen fine pictures in the Louvre. Germany can show some in Berlin, Dresden, and Munich; Holland has one or two. There are less than a dozen in all Italy. The Hermitage Gallery in St. Petersburg has five or six, and Vienna about twice as many; but to see Velazquez one must go to Madrid. The Museo del Prado has over sixty of the artist's pictures, and though a small proportion of these have scarcely a touch of the master's hand, all his greatest work has found a resting-place here. Las Lanzas, Las Hilanderas, Las Meniñas, Philip IV. on horseback, Don Balthasar Carlos on his pony, the Crucifixion, the Coronation of the Virgin, the Dwarfs, Æsop, Menippus--all these are to be seen in the Prado; the greater number being in the Salon of Isabella, an octagonal room in which one may spend long hours. The writer, on the occasion of his last visit to Madrid, made a note of the number of visitors to the famous octagonal room during the four mornings he spent there. In the course of some twelve hours the room was visited by some twelve people! It is only fair to say that it was not in the tourist season; the month was June, and nobody stayed in Madrid from choice.

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PLATE VIII.--THE PRINCESS MARIA THERESA OF AUSTRIA

This daughter of Philip IV. became Queen of France. The picture was painted when she was about ten years of age, and consequently belongs to the last period of Velazquez' work. It was hung in the Alcazar until some time in the eighteenth century, when it was transferred to the Prado.

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There are pictures by Velazquez to be seen in Madrid outside the Prado, but for the most part they are in private houses, and are not accessible to everybody. Seville boasts half-a-dozen canvases by her greatest painter, and there are a few elsewhere in Spain; but it may be said that those who know the Salon of Isabella have seen Velazquez at his best, and that those who have seen his other pictures and have not visited the Prado, do not know Velazquez at all.

Perhaps there are pleasant surprises yet in store for the art world, for many pictures are still untraced. Doubtless some have been destroyed by fire and others are in half-forgotten lumber rooms of palaces and galleries from which they will be gathered in due course. Velazquez owes a large part of his popularity in Spain to-day to the measure of appreciation he has secured beyond the borders. Every second-hand dealer in Madrid or Seville has a "genuine Murillo" to offer the stranger. It is worth a thousand pounds; but as the dealer is an honest man, he will sell it first for two hundred, then for one, and finally for fifteen or even ten. But no second-hand dealer shows a "genuine Velazquez." He knows that at best it could only appeal to artists, and he knows them for strange folk endowed with much enthusiasm, little money, and an embarrassing measure of knowledge of the methods by which genuine old masters are created to supply a long-felt want.

The plates are printed by BEMROSE DALZIEL, LTD., Watford

The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh

IN THE SAME SERIES

ARTIST. AUTHOR.

VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. LUINI. JAMES MASON. TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN.

_Others in Preparation._