The last years of the seventeenth century saw the death of the great sculptors of Spain, and with the opening of the eighteenth century we may say that the art of sculpture itself was dead. A corruption in taste had become general; it was evident in painting and in architecture as well as in sculpture. Churriguera was the great offender, but his contemporaries, following his lead, had sought by bad taste, displayed in excessive decoration and vivid colour, “to correct” the simplicity of art. The decline of sculpture in the South was more rapid and perhaps greater than in the Northern schools. Many of the old altar-screens were replaced by modern works of the new false art. A popular desire arose for works of the coarsest materialisation. The custom grew of dressing the statues in real garments. Then eyes of glass and real hair were in many instances added, and apparatus was invented for moving the head, mouth, eyes, and limbs of the statues. Many pieces of fine sculpture were actually destroyed to meet this degraded demand. The Virgins, and notably the las Doloras, were subjected to this treatment. One example of these “dressed images” is a Virgin in Seville Cathedral. The limbs of this carved doll move at the joints, while a contrivance in the body enables the head to turn to the right or the left. The body is covered with rose-coloured taffeta which is glued to the wood, the hair is of silk plaited with gold threads, and shoes of white kid encase the feet. Sometimes the figure sits, and sometimes stands, and the Child Jesus is placed in the arms or upon the knees according to the position of the mother. There is little more to add. A dying tradition of art with no master to reanimate its life--that is the record of the eighteenth century. One artist alone claims remembrance. Francisco Zarcello was the son of an unimportant Neapolitan artist, who had settled in Murcia at the close of the seventeenth century. It was from his father that Francisco Zarcello gained what training in art he had. It is said that he purposed going to Italy to study, but the project was not carried out. Probably Zarcello gained from thus pursuing his art alone, as he was saved from the error of imitation, especially baneful in this period of decadence. And though the renown he gained must be admitted to be in excess of the merit that his works claim, he did possess a considerable talent, with real feeling and something of the old Spanish religious sincerity. Had he lived in a different epoch, with conditions more favourable to art, he might have been a great artist.