Zurbarán was born in 1598. He was therefore a year older than Velázquez. By birth he did not belong to Seville, but to the province of Estremadura. But this notwithstanding, he grew up among the artistic influences of Andalusia, for the young painter arrived in Seville at the age of sixteen years, so that he is regarded as one of the greatest figures of the Sevillean School. For twenty-five years the artist was famous for his figures of virgins and saints, realistic in character, powerful, well drawn, vigorous and conceived without exaggeration, full of life and individuality. We mention as a work great in conception the _Apotheosis of Saint Thomas_, housed in the Museum of Seville. It is characteristic of Zurbarán the refractory, who refused to be inspired either by foreign or national influences. This lent him individuality and rendered his productions a series of continuous links between which but little difference can be remarked. He is famous, moreover, for his religious paintings, his monastic visions. These figures of monks in white sheets, which arouse admiration and appear to be carved, such is the relief of their draped folds, are characteristic and full of grandeur, feeling and austerity, and ought to be regarded in the light of actual documents of the monastic life of the Spain of the seventeenth century. The distinctive feature of the technique of Zurbarán is the luminosity rendered by means of strong contrasts of light and shade. High lights without crudity and shadows without blackness are noticeable, as in the works of Ribera. The grey tones are never heavy, and their quality, harmonious in its blending, diminishes the hardness of the lines of profile, suppressing all rigidity. Zurbarán is, moreover, a painter easily understood, who rarely has recourse to a symbolism more or less appropriate for the expression of thought, and his ideal aspirations always present, in all that refers to form, a manifest passion for reality. This master was well represented at the Royal Academy. Perhaps there was nothing of great distinction, but the nine works from his brush, all of one kind, were in general very typical and individual, comprising images, saints and figures realistic in character (Plate VIII.). * * * * *