Velasquez was constantly
taking, I may quote Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's amusing paragraph about a
curious variety of human beings in the Court Gallery. 'The Alcazar of
Madrid abounded with dwarfs in the days of Philip IV., who was very fond
of having them about him, and collected curious specimens of the race,
like other rarities. The Queen of Spain's gallery is, in consequence,
rich in portraits of these little monsters, executed by Velasquez. They
are, for the most part, very ugly, displaying, sometimes in an extreme
degree, the deformities peculiar to their stunted growth. Maria Barbola,
immortalized by a place in one of Velasquez's most celebrated pictures,
was a little dame about three feet and a half in height, with the head
and shoulders of a large woman, and a countenance much underjawed, and
almost ferocious in expression. Her companion, Nicolasito Pertusano,
although better proportioned than the lady, and of a more amicable
aspect, was very inferior in elegance as a royal plaything to his
contemporary, the valiant Sir Geoffrey Hudson; or his successor in the
next reign, the pretty Luisillo of Queen Louisa of Orleans. Velasquez
painted many portraits of these little creatures, generally seated on
the ground; and there is a large picture in the Louvre representing two
of them leading by a cord a great spotted hound, to which they bear the
same proportion that men of the usual size bear to a horse.'

In 1648 Velasquez again visited Italy, sent by the king this time to
collect works of art for the royal galleries and the academy about to be
founded. Velasquez went by Genoa, Milan, Venice (buying there chiefly
the works of Tintoret), and Parma, to Rome and Naples, returning to
Rome. At Rome Velasquez painted his splendidly characteristic portrait
of the Pope Innocent X., 'a man of coarse features and surly expression,
and perhaps the ugliest of all the successors of St Peter.'

Back at Madrid, Philip continued to load Velasquez and his family with
favours, appointing the painter Quarter-Master-General of the king's
household with a salary of three thousand ducats a year, and the right
of carrying at his girdle a key which opened every lock in the palace.

Philip is said to have raised Velasquez to knighthood in a manner as
gracious as the manner of Charles V, when he lifted up Titian's pencil.
In painting one of his most renowned pictures, to which I shall refer
again, 'The Maids of Honour,' Velasquez included him