It is a transcript from the religious life around him that Zurbaran here sets before us. Seville was the most orthodox city in the most Catholic country--at every corner of the streets there were Franciscan monks, with prayers or charms to sell in exchange for food or money. "For centuries in Spain country people bought up the monks' old garbs, to use them in dressing the dead, so that St. Peter might pass them into heaven thinking they were Franciscans." It was in the streets and convents of Seville therefore that Zurbaran found his models. This picture was bought for the National Gallery from the Louis Philippe sale in 1853. When the gallery of Spanish pictures to which it formerly belonged was inaugurated in the Louvre, "what remained most strongly in the Parisian mind, so impressionable and so _blasé_, was not the suavity of Murillo, nor the astonishing pencil of Velazquez, making the canvas speak and palpitate with life; it was a certain 'Monk in prayer' of Zurbaran, which it was impossible to forget, even if one had seen it only once" (C. Blanc, cited in W. B. Scott's _Murillo_, p. 55). "Of his gloomy monastic studies," says Stirling-Maxwell, "the kneeling Franciscan holding a skull is one of the ablest; the face, dimly seen beneath the brown hood, is turned to heaven; no trace of earthly expression is left on its pale features, but the wild eyes seem fixed on some dismal vision; and a single glance at the canvas imprints the figure on the memory for ever." 232. THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS. _Francisco Zurbaran_ (Spanish: 1598-1662). _See_ 230. A characteristic and fine example of the naturalistic treatment of such subjects by the Spanish School; formerly supposed to be an early work of Velazquez, now attributed by the authorities of the Gallery, following M. de Beruete, to Zurbaran.[116] The affinity of the Spanish School in this respect to the Italian naturalists may be seen by a glance at No. 172 in the late Italian Room. In the distance is the guiding angel as the star of the Epiphany. It is a pretty piece of observation of child nature that makes the painter show the boy offering his animals to the infant Christ. One remembers George Eliot's "young Daniel" (in _Scenes of Clerical Life_), who says to Mr. Gilfil, by way of making friends, "We've got two pups, shall I show 'em yer? One's got white spots." Zurbaran was noted for his successful delineation of animals. Palomino mentions with approbation his picture of an enraged dog from which chance observers used to run away, and of a yearling lamb, deemed by the possessor of more value than a hecatomb of full-grown sheep. 234. A WARRIOR ADORING THE INFANT CHRIST. _Catena_ (Venetian: died 1531).