The studio which he built for himself after his marriage with the daughter of Federigo Madrazo in Rome was a little museum of the most exquisite products of the artistic crafts of the West and the East: the walls were decorated with brilliant oriental stuffs, and great glass cabinets with Moorish and Arabian weapons, and old tankards and glasses from Murano stood around. He sought and collected everything that shines and gleams in varying colour. That was his world, and the basis of his art. Pillars of marble and porphyry, groups of ivory and bronze, lustres of Venetian glass, gilded consoles with small busts, great tables supported by gilded satyrs and inlaid with variegated mosaics, form the surroundings of that astonishing work "The Trial of the Model." Upon a marble table a young girl is standing naked, posing before a row of academicians in the costume of the Louis XV period, while each one of them gives his judgment by a movement or an expression of the face. One of them has approached quite close, and is examining the little woman through his lorgnette. All the costumes gleam in a thousand hues, which the marble reflects. By his picture "The Poet" or "The Rehearsal" he reached his highest point in the capricious analysis of light. In an old _rococo_ garden, with the brilliant façade of the Alhambra as its background, there is a gathering of gentlemen assembled to witness the rehearsal of a tragedy. The heroine, a tall, charming, luxuriant beauty, has just fallen into a faint. On the other hand, the hero, holding the lady on his right arm, is reading the verses of his part from a large manuscript. The gentlemen are listening, and exchanging remarks with the air of connoisseurs; one of them closes his eyes to listen with thorough attention. Here the entire painting flashes like a rocket, and is as iridescent and brilliant as a peacock's tail. Fortuny splits the rays of the sun into endless _nuances_ which are scarcely perceptible to the eye, and gives expression to their flashing glitter with astonishing delicacy. Henri Regnault, who visited him at that time in Rome, wrote to a Parisian friend: "The time I spent with Fortuny yesterday is haunting me still. What a magnificent fellow he is! He paints the most marvellous things, and is the master of us all. I wish I could show you the two or three pictures that he has in hand, or his etchings and water-colours. They inspired me with a real disgust of my own. Ah! Fortuny, you spoil my sleep." [Illustration: FORTUNY. THE TRIAL OF THE MODEL. (_By permission of Messrs. Boussod, Valadon & Co., the owners of the copyright._)]