Beruete believes Palomino was wrong in declaring that Velasquez painted the young cardinal in Rome; Madrid was the likelier city.  The style proves an earlier date than 1650.  The cardinal withdrew from the cardinalate after three years, 1644-47 > and married.  The portrait was acquired by the American artist the late Francis Lathrop.  Stevenson grants to the Metropolitan Museum a fruit-piece by Velasquez.  Not so Beruete.  J. H. McFadden of Philadelphia once owned the Dona Mariana of Austria, second wife of Philip IV, in a white-and-black dress, gold chain over her shoulder, hair adorned with red bows and red-and-white feather, from the Lyne-Stephens collection in the New Gallery, 1895—­and is so quoted by Stevenson; but he sold the picture and Beruete has lost track of it.

Whereas Stevenson in his invaluable book studies his subject broadly in chapters devoted to the dignity of the Velasquez technique, his colour, modelling, brushwork, and his impressionism, Beruete follows a more detailed yet simpler method.  Picture by picture, in each of the three styles—­he adopts Justi’s and Stevenson’s classification—­he follows the painter, dealing less with the man than his work.  Not that biographical data are missing—­on the contrary, there are many pages of anecdotes as well as the usual facts—­but Beruete is principally concerned with the chronology and attribution of the pictures.  He has dug up some fresh material concerning the miserable pay Velasquez received, rather fought for, at the court of Philip, where he was on a par with the dwarfs, barbers, comedians, servants, and other dependants of the royal household.

The painter has been criticised for his attachment to the king; but as he was not of a religious nature and did not paint religious pieces with the gusto of his contemporaries, the court was his only hope of existence; either court or church.  He made his choice early, and while we must regret the enormous wasting of the hours consequent upon the fulfilment of his duties as a functionary, master of the revels, and what not, we should not forget how extremely precarious would have been his lot as a painter without royal favour in the Spain of those days.  He had his bed, board, house, and though he died penniless—­his good wife Juana only survived him seven days—­he had the satisfaction of knowing that he owed no man, and that his daughter had married his pupil Mazo.  Velasquez was born at Seville in 1599; died at Madrid, 1660.  His real name was Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez.  He was a Silva—­for the “de” was acquired from the king after much pettifoggery on the part of that monarch with the prognathic jaw—­and he was of Portuguese blood.  He signed Velasquez—­a magic grouping of letters for the lovers of art—­though born as he was in Spain his forefathers came from Portugal.  The mixed blood has led to furious disputes among hot-headed citizens of the two kingdoms.  As if it much mattered.  Velasquez’s son-in-law, by the way, Juan Mazo, was the author of a number of imitations and forgeries.  He was a true friend of the picture-dealers.