Even as an etcher he caught all the technical finesses and appetising piquancies of his great forerunner Goya. It is only with very light and spirited strokes that the outlines of his figures are drawn; then, as in Goya, comes the aquatint, the colour which covers the background and gives locality, depth, and light. A few scratches with a needle, a black spot, a light made by a judiciously inserted patch of white, and he gives his figures life and character, causing them to emerge from the black depth of the background like mysterious visions. "The Dead Arab," covered with his black cloak, and lying on the ground with his musket on his arm, "The Shepherd" on the stump of a pillar, "The Serenade," "The Reader," "The Tambourine Player," "The Pensioner," the picture of the gentleman with a pig-tail bending over his flowers, "The Anchorite," and "The Arab mourning over the Body of his Friend," are the most important of his plates, which are sometimes pungent and spirited, and sometimes sombre and fantastic. In the picture "The Strand of Portici" he attempted to strike out a new path. He was tired of the gay rags of the eighteenth century, as he said himself, and meant to paint for the future only subjects from surrounding life in an entirely modern manner like that of Manet. But he was not destined to carry out this change any further. He passed away in Rome on 21st November 1874. When the unsold works which he left were put up to auction the smallest sketches fetched high figures, and even his etchings were bought at marvellous prices. [Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ FORTUNY. THE SNAKE CHARMERS.]