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.”]

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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 exquisite miniature representation in the possession of Lord Overston, not more than fifteen inches in height.  Lord Lansdowne has also a beautiful small “Conception,” very simply treated.  In those which have dark hair, Murillo is said to have taken his daughter Francisca as a model.  The number of attendant angels varies from one or two, to thirty.  They bear the palm, the olive, the rose, the lily, the mirror; sometimes a sceptre and crown.  I remember but few instances in which he has introduced the dragon-fiend, an omission which Pacheco is willing to forgive; “for,” as he observes, “no man ever painted the devil with good-will.”

In the Louvre picture (No. 1124), the Virgin is adored by three ecclesiastics.  In another example, quoted by Mr. Stirling (Artists of Spain, p. 839), a friar is seen writing at her feet:  this figure probably represents her champion, the friar Duns Scotus.  There is at Hampton Court a picture, by Spagnoletto, of this same Duns Scotus writing his defence of the Immaculate Conception.  Spagnoletto was painting at Naples, when, in 1618, “the Viceroy solemnly swore, in presence of the assembled multitude, to defend with his life the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception;” and this picture, curious and striking in its way, was painted about the same time.

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