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During the years in which Van Dyck was painting his beautiful portraits
of the Royal Family of England, another painter, Velasquez, was
immortalizing another Royal Family in the far-away country of Spain.
Cut off by the great mountains of the Pyrenees from the rest of Europe,
Spain did not rank among the foremost powers until after the discovery
of America had brought wealth to her from the gold mines of Mexico
and Peru. In the sixteenth century the King of Spain's dominions,
actual or virtual, covered a great part of Western Europe, excepting
England and France. Germany, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands, owned
the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. His son was Philip
II. of Spain, the husband of our Queen Mary of England, and his
great-grandson was King Philip IV., the patron of Velasquez, as Charles
I. was of Van Dyck.

It is the little son of Philip IV., Don Balthazar Carlos, whose portrait
is before us--as manly and sturdy looking a little fellow as ever
bestrode a pony. He was but six years old when Velasquez painted the
picture here reproduced. Certainly he was not fettered and cramped
and prevented from taking exercise like his little sisters. The
princesses of Spain were dressed in wide skirts, spread out over hoops
and hiding their feet, from the time they could walk. The tops of the
dresses were as stiff as corselets, and one wonders how the little
girls were able to move at all. As they grew older the hoops became
wider and wider, until in one picture of a grown-up princess, the skirts
are broader than the whole height of her body. Stringent Court
etiquette forbade a princess to let her feet be seen, but so odd may
such conventions be, that it was nevertheless thought correct for the
Queen to ride on horseback astride.

It is from the canvases of Velasquez that we know the Spanish Royal
Family and the aspect of the Court of Philip IV. as though we had lived
there ourselves. The painter was born in the south of Spain in the
same year as Van Dyck, and seven years earlier than Rembrandt. To paint
the portrait of his sovereign was the ambition of the young artist.
When his years were but twenty-four the opportunity arrived, and Philip
was so pleased with the picture that he took the young man into his
household, and said that no one else should ever be allowed to paint
his portrait. Velasquez welcomed with gratified joy the prospect of
that life-long proximity, although neither his earning