Philip IV. must have known long hours of anxiety and unrest, there is
no reason to believe that he withdrew his company or his favour from
the best beloved of his court painters. Spinola had taken Breda from
Justin of Nassau, and the surrender was promptly immortalised by
Velazquez in the picture "Las Lanzas," which draws so many pilgrims to
Madrid to-day. It was painted for the palace of Buen Retiro, and
curiously enough--since it records one of the few successes of Spain in
the Low Countries--the subject passed out of men's memory, and for many
years nobody knew why the artist had painted it, or what it was all
about. Some time between the painting of this picture and the fall of
Olivarez, Murillo came to Madrid and became a pupil of Velazquez, who
had just received a grant of five hundred ducats to be paid annually by
order of the king. In 1644 Velazquez accompanied Philip on a journey
through Aragon, and two or three years later he was appointed Inspector
of Buildings, a post involving much tedious work, and helping to keep
the painter from his studio. He seems to have bestowed a certain
amount of labour on portraits painted by other men, in order to bring
them into harmony with the collection that Philip was making. It is
difficult to deal with this matter within limited space because the
details are distinctly controversial, but it is as well to remember
that some of the portraits attributed to Velazquez in the Prado Gallery
are of people who were dead before Velazquez was painting, so they
could not have sat for him; and in the days of Philip IV. it was
considered no disgrace for a man to repaint another artist's canvases.
Moreover, a painter to the court of Spain was not supposed to carry an
uneasy conscience about with him. It was his duty to obey orders and
to accept from his superiors as much guidance and direction as they
were gracious enough to give him.

In 1649 the king granted Velazquez permission to return to Italy in
order to find pictures for a Royal Academy of Fine Art to be
established in Madrid. By this time Philip was a widower, though he
was on the point of marrying his niece, Mariana of Austria. She had
been affianced to the Infante Don Balthasar Carlos, but he had been
dead for three years, and the Spanish throne was without an heir.
Velazquez visited Genoa, Venice, Milan, and Padua, and brought back
pictures by Veronese and Tintoretto. Rome and Naples were revisited,
and the famous p