_Martin Rico_ was for the longest period in Italy with Fortuny, and his pictures also have the glitter of a casket of jewels, the pungency of sparkling champagne. Some of his sea-pieces in particular--for instance, those of the canal in Venice and the Bay of Fontarabia--might have been painted by Fortuny. In others he seems quieter and more harmonious than the latter. His execution is more powerful, less marked by spirited stippling, and his light gains in intensity and atmospheric refinement what it loses in mocking caprices, while his little figures have a more animated effect, notwithstanding the less piquant manner in which they are painted. Their outlines are scarcely perceptible, and yet they are seen walking, jostling, and pressing against each other; whereas those of Fortuny, precisely through the more subtle and microscopic method in which they have been executed, often seem as though they were benumbed in movement. Certain market scenes, with a dense crowd of buyers and sellers, are peculiarly spirited, rapid sketches, with a gleaming charm of colour. _Zamacois_, _Casanova_, and _Raimundo de Madrazo_, Fortuny's brother-in-law, show no less virtuosity of the palette. Sea-pieces and little landscapes alternate with scenes from Spanish popular life, where they revel, like Fortuny, in a scintillating medley of colour. Later, in Paris, Madrazo was likewise much sought after as a painter of ladies' portraits, as he lavished on his pictures sometimes a fine _hautgoût_ of fragrant _rococo_ grace _a la_ Chaplin, and sometimes devoted himself with taste and deftness to symphonic _tours de force à la_ Carolus Duran. Particularly memorable is the portrait of a graceful young girl in red, exhibited in the Munich Exhibition of 1883. She is seated upon a sofa of crimson silk, and her feet rest upon a dark red carpet. Equally memorable in the Paris World Exhibition of 1889 was a pierrette, whose costume ran through the whole gamut from white to rose-colour. Her skirt was of a darker, her bodice of a brighter red, and a light rose-coloured stocking peeped from beneath a grey silk petticoat; over her shoulders lay a white swansdown cape, and white gloves and white silk shoes with rose-coloured bows completed her toilette. His greatest picture represented "The End of a Masked Ball." Before the Paris Opera cabs are waiting with coachmen sleeping or smoking, whilst a troop of pierrots and pierrettes, harlequins, Japanese girls, _rococo_ gentlemen, and Turkish women are streaming out, sparkling with the most glittering colours in the grey light of a winter morning, in which the gas lamps cast a warm yellow glimmer. [Illustration: CASADO. THE BELLS OF HUESCA.]