And if the Duke of Westminster’s ‘Don Balthasar’ (not to speak of the Queen’s well-known and splendid representation of the boy) illustrates this--a subordination of the personal portrayal to the general effect--so the very perfection of the study of individuality is evidenced in one or two of the portraits of Philip’s second wife, Mariana of Austria, and in that unsurpassable achievement, the Duke of Wellington’s half-length, or head and shoulders, of Innocent the Tenth. It is probable that in more than one of the portraits of Mariana--those in which she is depicted at full-length--much of the painting of her raiment is due to the hand of some pupil of the master’s. But by Velasquez wholly, as we should surmise, is Sir Francis Cook’s bust of the little lady, and this is the earliest of her portraits here, and is succeeded by Mr. Cuthbert Quilter’s three-quarters length, and by Sir Clare Ford’s extraordinarily fresh and vigorous and thorough rendering of the girl in much the same manner. Greatest of all, perhaps, for colour, character, and--there is no other word for it--‘modernness,’ or actuality, is the ‘Innocent the Tenth.’ It belongs to the Duke of Wellington. Seven years ago we paid it, at the Old Masters, our tribute of homage. It is one of several treatments of the same dignitary, wrought by Velasquez after that voyage to Italy in which the artist had Spinola for companion. But it is one of the most genuine and one of the most intact; and perhaps it is but by an error of phrase that it is described as a ‘repetition’ of the picture at the Hermitage. In it, at all events, the finest qualities of masculine portraiture are combined and displayed. It is said that the key to human expression is most of all at the corners of the mouth. Charged with the love of life, the love of its good things, and the love of domination, is this mouth of Innocent’s. But is his eye less revealing?--wary, here, and shrewd; watchful, yet full of fire. What a study of character, and what a triumph of brush-work! A noble ‘Philip the Fourth,’ harmonious in silver and rose-red, from the Dulwich Gallery, sets forth, certainly not better than this does, the greatness of Velasquez’ mission, nor has it quite as fully as this the pre-eminent decisiveness which is so much of his charm. (_Standard_, 30th December 1895.) FRENCH EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PAINTING