International studio (26.1905)

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/—w A HE BOSTON VELASQUEZ
j' THE portrait called IF.
i ' and attributed to Velasquez, a repro-
duction of which we show herewith, was
bought for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts at
Madrid, on October i, 1904, by Dr. Denman W.
Ross, after a careful comparison with the works
by Velasquez in the Prado Museum. The por-
trait resembles the painter's early work. The
general tone is gray, the only spot of vivid colour
being the full red lips. The light falls strongly
from the left. The background is featureless,
except for the table with the hat and the level base
line of the blank wall. The pose is without dra-
matic suggestion, marked by a dignified calm. The
hands are carefully modelled. The steep inc! ne of
the lower side lines of the table brings it near and
well below the eye, in this agreeing with the artist's
usual manner of painting standing and close to the
subject. The figure is a little under life size,
according in this respect with the painter's usual
method of overcoming the unpleasant effect of
emergence from the plane of the frame. Through-
out the canvas outlines are sharply defined and the
surfaces they bound are hard and unyielding.
There is no marked suggestion of atmosphere. In
texture the canvas, which measures 82 by 34J
inches, is fine. The pigment has been evenly ap-
plied and beneath it the red ochre underpainting,
characteristic of the master's earlier work, which
he changed later on for a gray undertone, is dis-
cernible in many places.
The portrait shows Philip at the age of eighteen,
which brings the date to 1623. He is dressed in
black with light gray golilla and cuffs in the court
fashion of the time, when all personal display was
strictly, almost ostentatiously, avoided. Philip
wears a gold chain from which hangs the Order of
the Golden Fleece. The table is covered with a dull
crimson cloth trimmed with gold. His left hand
rests along the hilt of the sword, not on the pommel,
as in the later portrait now in the Prado gallery, and
the cross guard has caught the edge of the cuff and
turned it up, as seen in the wrinkles of the cuff on
that side and the duller gleam of the steel through
the fine lawn.
Though the whole work shows an intent of
faithful and unadorned record, the balance of
interest, the plan of the picture, is kept well in hand
throughout. Other parts are subordinated to the
face. The ear, for instance, which has almost no
lobe, is somewhat lower in tone and less modelled.
Costume and accessories are kept down in tone and

degree of detail. It has been suggested that the
painting, which is assigned to the date of Velasquez'
second visit to Madrid, supplies the gap between
his earlier Sevillian pictures and the Prado portrait
of Philip, standing between the manner of the so-
called and the self-confident mastery that
followed.
In default of exact external evidence, the ques-
tion of the source of the painting turned on the
character of the workmanship; and shortly after the
acquisition by the Museum in Boston this became
the occasion of some critical dispute. In the certifi-
cate of Don Pedro de Madrazo, at the time director
of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, the
portrait is described "as undoubtedly a work of
Velasquez." The learned author of the Prado
catalogue identified the picture as one, all trace of
which had been lost, described in the will of Carlos
II. (d. ryoo). In size, subject, artist and style it
corresponds with the description in the will. And
that there was no confusion here with the later por-
trait of Philip IV. by Velasquez (Prado No. i,oyo)
was evident from the fact that both portraits were
listed in the inventory drawn up at the death of
Carlos II. as belonging to the collection of the
Palace of Buen Retiro. Twenty of the twenty-five
painters and critics who have hitherto passed judg-
ment upon the qualities of the painting find it to be
an original and by Velasquez. Besides Senor de
Madrazo, they are Charles B. Curtis, author of
Bernhard Berenson, author
of well-known volumes of art criticism; Claude
Phillips, Frank W. Benson, Joseph De Camp,
Philip L. Hale, Charles Hopkinson, Dodge
MacICnight, Hermann D. Murphy, William M.
Paxton, John B. Potter, J. Lindon Smith and
Edmund C. Tarbell, of Boston; William Rankin,
of Wellesley College; William M. Chase, Francis
Lathrop and J. Alden Weir, of New York; Roger
E. Fry, of London; F. Mason Perkins, of Siena,
Italy.

M

USEUM NOTES

AMONG THE CHANGES at the Metro-
politan Museum of Art consequent on
the annual spring cleaning and rear-
ranging of the galleries, the canvas by Hans Makart,
DfotwuL Parly, has been removed from
the upper wall of the central gallery in the old
wing, to room 24. It is now placed where it can be
seen to much better advantage, and where its ex-
tremely interesting technique can be studied at
close range. Among the canvases shown for the

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