Again we find him in Venice, where he bought two Tintorets and a
Veronese, and again he made a long stay in Rome, this time to paint
the portrait of the Pope. When he returned to Spain in 1651 he had
still nine years of work before him. There were portraits of Philip's
new Queen to be painted--a young girl in a most uncomfortable
dress--and portraits of her child, the Infanta Marguerita. Bewitching
are the pictures of this little princess at the ages of three, of four,
and of seven, with her fair hair tied in a bow at the side of her head,
and voluminous skirts of pink and silver. But sweetest of all is the
picture called 'The Maids of Honour' ('Les Meninas'), in which the
princess, aged about six, is being posed for her portrait. She is
petulant and tired, and two of her handmaidens are cajoling her to
stand still. Her two dwarfs and a big dog have been brought to amuse
her, and the King and Queen, reflected in a mirror at the end of the
room, stand watching the scene. Velasquez himself, with his easel and
brushes, is at the side, painting. The picture perpetuates for
centuries a moment of palace life. In that transitory instant,
Velasquez took his vivid impression of the scene, and has translated
his impression into paint. Everything is simple and natural as can
be. The ordinary light of day falls upon the princess, but does not
penetrate to the ceiling of the lofty room, which is still in shadow.
All seem to have come together haphazard without being fitted into
the canvas. There is little detail, and the whole effect seems produced
by the simplest means; yet in reality the skill involved is so great
that artists to-day spend weeks copying the picture, in the endeavour
to learn something of the secret of Velasquez.

The best judges are among those who rank him highest, so that he is
called pre-eminently 'the painter's painter.' It is impossible for
any one but a painter to understand how he used paint. From near at
hand it looks a smudge, but at the proper distance every stroke takes
its right place. Such freedom was the result of years of careful
painting of detail, and is not to be attained by any royal road.
Velasquez seldom seems to have made preliminary drawings, but of that
we cannot be sure. Certainly he had learned to conceive his vision
as a whole, and we may fancy at least that he drew it so upon the
canvas--altering the lines as he went--working at all the parts of
the picture at once, keeping the due re