* * * * * To one of the latter allusion has already been made: the _Philip IV_ of the National Gallery. How infallibly just is the placing of the black bust and head against the dark background! With what _finesse_ have been calculated the accents of the chain and ornaments and collar, in order to secure and at the same time alleviate the emphasis of the empty, solemn head with its puffed, waxy features and soft, pallid hair! How absolutely a unit is the whole impression! while the brush work is the _ne plus ultra_ of impressionistic technique. A miracle of painting also is presented in the portrait of a child, identified variously as _Doña Margarita_ or _Doña María Teresa_, and in that of the not much older _Doña Mariana de Austria_, Philip’s second wife [Illustration: LAS MENIÑAS (THE MAIDS OF HONOR) VELASQUEZ THE PRADO] (p. 119). The child’s “guarda-infante” is of cloth of silver, woven diagonally with pale rose silk, all ashimmer with veiled lustre. Vermilion bows adorn her waist, a jeweled rosette of the same color her corsage, while a small rosette under the left ear and a plume on the right of the head, both vermilion, set off the soft straw-colored hair and the fresh tender hues of her face. Curtain and carpet are a rosy crimson, thus completing a tonal scheme of exquisitely delicate vivacity. In the second portrait the Queen’s robe is of black velvet, shot with brown, decorated with silver bullion. Notes of poppy scarlet appear at her wrists, while a pale scarlet mingled with silver is the color of the plume and of the ribbon flowers in her hair. The curtain, in color pale rosy burgundy, frames a dark olive background, a concavity of atmosphere, in the half-light of which appears a dainty gold clock upon a table. These two canvases are marvels of technical achievement and surpassing loveliness. A head and bust-portrait of this Queen, apparently in the same costume, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. A broader method, in which one strongly feels the exhilaration of the brushstrokes, is represented in the _Æsopus_ and _Moenippus_. The grizzled black hair and pallid features of the former show against a warm drab-olive background. In the lower right corner is a spot of black and creamy fabric; opposite to it a creamy colored bowl; otherwise the figure is a study in browns of peculiarly fine quality. The background of the _Moenippus_ is somewhat colder than the _Æsopus_; in key with the black cloak. The cap, boots, and the table and pitcher are of tones of brown; the beard is grey and the flesh of the face ripely rubicund. Even in the photograph one can appreciate the masterful breadth of the draperies, and feel through the modulation of the values the bulk of the figure beneath.