his brilliant suite to sign the treaty of peace, Fortuny developed a feverish activity. The great battle-piece which he should have executed on the commission of the Academy of Barcelona remained unfinished. On the other hand, he painted a series of Oriental pictures, in which his astonishing dexterity and his marvellously sensitive eye were already to be clearly discerned: the stalls of Moorish carpet-sellers, with little figures swarming about them, and the rich display of woven stuffs of the East; the weary attitude of old Arabs sitting in the sun; the sombre, brooding faces of strange snake-charmers and magicians. This is no Parisian East, like Fromentin's; every one here speaks Arabic. Guillaumet alone, who afterwards interpreted the fakir world of the East, dreamy and contemplative in the sunshine, has been equally convincing. [Illustration: _L'Art._ MARIANO FORTUNY.] Yet Fortuny first discovered his peculiar province when he began, after his return, to paint those brilliant kaleidoscopic _rococo_ pictures with their charming play of colour, the pictures which founded his reputation in Paris. Even in the earliest, representing gentlemen of the _rococo_ period examining engravings in a richly appointed interior, the Japanese weapons, Renaissance chests, gilded frames of carved wood, and all the delightful _petit-riens_ from the treasury of the past which he had heaped together in it, were so wonderfully painted that Goupil began a connection with him and ordered further works. This commission occasioned his journey, in the autumn of 1866, to Paris, where he entered into Meissonier's circle, and worked sometimes at Gérôme's. Yet neither of them exerted any influence upon him at all worth mentioning. The French painter in miniature is probably the father of the department of art to which Fortuny belongs; but the latter united to the delicate execution of the Frenchman the flashing, gleaming spirit of the Latin races of the South. He is a Meissonier with _esprit_ recalling Goya. In his picture "The Spanish Marriage" (La Vicaria) all the vivid, throbbing, _rococo_ world, buried with Goya, revived once more. While in his Oriental pieces--"The Praying Arab," "The Arabian Fantasia," and "The Snake Charmers"--he still aimed at concentration and unity of effect, this picture had something gleaming, iridescent and pearly, which soon became the delight of all collectors. Fortuny's successes, his celebrity, and his fortune dated from that time. His fame flashed forth like a meteor. After fighting long years in vain, not for recognition, but for his very bread, he suddenly became the most honored painter of the day, and began to exert upon a whole generation of young artists that powerful influence which survives even at this very day. [Illustration: FORTUNY. THE SPANISH MARRIAGE (LA VICARIA). (_By permission of Messrs. Goupil & Co., the owners of the copyright._)]