Considerable though it be, Herrera’s artistic achievement does not constitute his chief claim to fame; for his name will ever be best known as that of the first master of the greatest of all Spanish painters, Don Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez. But before discussing the pictures by, or catalogued under the name of, Velazquez at the Louvre, we must consider the work of two other painters of the Naturalistic school: Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1661) and José de Ribera, called “Lo Spagnoletto” (1588-1656). Zurbarán, a pupil of the Sevillan Juan de las Roelas, was essentially a painter of church pictures, his favourite subjects being types of monks and scenes of monkish life. There is something so sincere and convincing in his unrelenting realism, that even his pictures of rapturous ecstasy and strongly emphasised emotion impress one as truthful renderings of types observed by the artist in the streets and churches of monastic Seville. The sombre passion with which his subjects are instinct is reflected by his colour and masterly chiaroscuro. Zurbarán became Court Painter to Philip IV. in or before 1633, in which year he added the words “_Pintor del Rey_” to his signature on one of his pictures; and in this capacity he painted at Madrid his only known secular pictures, a series of ten Scenes from the History of Hercules. Two admirable pictures from his brush figure in the Louvre Catalogue as _St. Peter Nolasque and St. Raymond de Peñafort_ (No. 1738) and _The Funeral of a Bishop_ (No. 1739). As a matter of fact they represent two scenes from the life of St. Bonaventura: _The Saint presiding at a Chapter of Minor Brothers_, and _The Funeral of St Bonaventura_. The second of these companion pictures which were originally in a convent at Seville is particularly striking for the unconventionality of its composition, the strong character of the heads, and the masterly treatment of the chiaroscuro. Note again the placing of the heads almost in a horizontal line right across the canvas, and the anxious avoidance of empty spaces. The third picture that stands to Zurbarán’s name is the figure of _A Lady of Fashion in the Character of St. Apollonia_ (No. 1740), a work of not very striking merit. RIBERA