ore the time of Murillo, is by
Roelas, who died in 1625; it is in the academy at Seville, and is
mentioned by Mr. Ford as "equal to Guido."[1]

[Footnote 1: Handbook of Spain. A very fine picture of this subject,
by Roelas, was sold out of the Soult Collection.]

One of the most beautiful and characteristic, as well as earliest,
examples of this subject I have seen, is a picture in the Esterhazy
Gallery at Vienna. The Virgin is in the first bloom of girlhood; she
looks not more than nine or ten years old, with dark hair, Spanish
features, and a charming expression of childlike simplicity and
devotion. She stands amid clouds, with her hands joined, and the
proper white and blue drapery: there are no accessories. This picture
is attributed to an obscure painter, Lazaro Tavarone, of whom I can
learn nothing more than that he was employed in the Escurial about
1590.

The beautiful small "Conception" by Velasquez, in the possession
of Mr. Frere, is a departure from the rules laid down by Pacheco in
regard to costume; therefore, as I presume, painted before he entered
the studio of the artist-inquisitor, whose son-in-law he became before
he was three and twenty. Here the Virgin is arrayed in a pale violet
robe, with a dark blue mantle. Her hands are joined, and she looks
down. The solemnity and depth of expression in the sweet girlish face
is very striking; the more so, that it is not a beautiful face, and
has the air of a portrait. Her long hair flows over her shoulders. The
figure is relieved against a bright sun, with fleecy clouds around;
and the twelve stars are over her head. She stands on the round moon,
of which the upper half is illumined. Below, on earth, and through
the deep shadow, are seen several of the emblems of the Virgin--the
fountain, the temple, the olive, the cypress, and the garden enclosed
in a treillage of roses.[1] This picture is very remarkable; it is in
the earliest manner of Velasquez, painted in the bold free style of
his first master, Herrara, whose school he quitted when he was about
seventeen or eighteen, just at the period when the Pope's ordinance
was proclaimed at Seville.

[Footnote 1: v. Introduction: "The Symbols and Attributes of the
Virgin."]

* * * * *

Of twenty-five pictures of this subject, painted by Murillo, there are
not two exactly alike; and they are of all sizes, from the colossal
figure called the "Great Conception of Seville," to the e