k on a portrait of Philip IV. This is
one of the most important works of the master out of the Peninsula; the
faces of the family sparkle on the sober background like gems. As a
piece of easy actual life, the composition has never been surpassed, and
perhaps it excels even "The Meninas," inasmuch as the hoops and dwarfs
of the palace have not intruded upon the domestic privacy of the
painter's home, in the northern gallery.'[28]

Velasquez seems to have been a man of honour and amiability. He filled
a difficult office at the most jealous court in Europe with credit. He
was true to his friends, and helpful to his brother artists. His
biographer writes of Velasquez as handsome in person, and describes his
costume when he appeared for the last time with his king in the galas at
Pheasants' Isle:--'over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the
usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross
of Santiago; the badge of the order, sparkling with brilliants, was
suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of
his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian
workmanship.' In the likeness of Velasquez, which is the frontispiece of
Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's 'Life,' the painter appears as a man of
swarthy complexion, with a long compressed upper lip, unconcealed by his
long, elaborately trimmed moustache; his hair, or wig, is arranged in
two large frizzed bunches on each side of a face which is inclined to be
lantern-jawed. He wears a dark doublet with a 'standing white collar.'

Velasquez's excellence as a painter was to be found, like that of
Rembrandt, in his truth to nature; but the field of truth presented to
the stately Spaniard, while it had its own ample share of humour, was a
widely different field from that which offered itself to the Dutch
burgher. Together with absolute truth, Velasquez had the ease and
facility in expressing truth which are only acquired by a great master.
Like Rubens, Velasquez made essays in many branches of painting. In
sacred art, if we except his 'Crucifixion,' he did not attain a high
place. With regard to his landscapes, Sir David Wilkie bore
witness:--'Titian seems his model, but he has also the breadth and
picturesque effect for which Claude and Salvator Rosa are remarkable;'
and Sir David added of those landscapes, 'they have the very same sun we
see, and the air we breathe, the very soul and spirit of nature.'

Velasquez's _genre_