The examples from English collections were the magnificent portrait of _Juán de Pareja, the Painter_, from Longford Castle; the bust of _A Spanish Gentleman_, the property of the Duke of Wellington; _Calabacillas_, _the Buffoon_ (Plate IX.) which has recently passed into Sir Herbert Cook’s collection; _The Kitchen Maid_, in Sir Otto Beit’s collection--all representative of a period of the artist--as well as the portrait of _Don Baltasar Carlos, Infante of Spain_, which His Majesty the King of England lent from Buckingham Palace. Of this last special mention must be made. In our judgment it is an undoubted Velázquez and, moreover, a most beautiful example. Every part of the armour, of the legs, of the body, and, above all, the adjustment of the figure and the design are typical of Velázquez. How has it come to be regarded in England as a work of Mazo, where the master is so justly esteemed and where, owing, doubtless to enthusiasm for Velázquez, nearly all the pictures of Mazo are attributed to Velázquez? Or is it that some have arrived at false conclusions concerning Mazo and Velázquez, and when they are confronted by an original and undoubted Velázquez, are dubious of it because it does not appear sufficiently typical of Mazo? It has not, to the best of our belief, elsewhere been observed that the head of this portrait is somewhat faint and flat. From Spain there were sent _The Hand of an Ecclesiastic_, lent by His Majesty the King of Spain, a fragment, without doubt, from a portrait of which the remainder was lost in the burning of the Alcazar of Madrid. The special interest of the said fragment is that the hand holds a paper on which is the signature of Velázquez, assuredly, one of the three authentic signatures of this artist which remain to us, the others being found on the portrait of _Philip IV_, in the National Gallery, London, and that of _Pope Innocent X_, in the Doria Gallery at Rome. Concerning the portrait of _Pulido Pareja_ in the National Gallery, London, we have already written at some length on another occasion, with the intention of proving that this portrait is by Mazo, and that the signature is consequently apocryphal. The _Portrait of the Artist_, from the Fine Art Museum, Valencia, is a beautiful example, if somewhat damaged and blackened, and the other three works shown have been more frequently exhibited and studied than those which are of undoubted authenticity. Among others of outstanding interest is the _Head of a Cleric_, the property of the Count of Fuenclara, which, although its attribution is not unquestioned, is remembered above all as a beautiful piece of work. * * * * *