In the history of the arts there are cases such as Fortuny’s, of Mozart, Chopin, Raphael, and some others, whose precocity and prodigious powers of production astonished their contemporaries.  Fortuny, whose full name was Mariano Jose Maria Bernardo Fortuny y Carbo, was born at Reus, a little town in the province of Tarragona, near Barcelona.  He was very poor, and at the age of twelve an orphan.  His grandfather, a carpenter, went with the lad on foot through the towns of Catalonia exhibiting a cabinet containing wax figures painted by Mariano and perhaps modelled by him.  He began carving and daubing at the age of five; a regular little fingersmith, his hands were never idle.  He secured by the promise of talent a pension of forty-two francs a month and went to Barcelona to study at the Academy.  Winning the prize of Rome in 1857, he went there and copied old masters until 1860, when, the war between Spain and Morocco breaking out, he went to Morocco on General Prim’s staff, and for five or six months his brain was saturated with the wonders of Eastern sunlight, exotic hues, beggars, gorgeous rugs, snake-charmers, Arabs afoot or circling on horseback with the velocity of birds, fakirs, all the huge glistening febrile life he was later to interpret with such charm and exactitude.

He returned to Rome.  He made a second trip to Africa.  He returned to Spain.  Barcelona gave him a pension of a hundred and thirty-two francs a month, which amount was kept up later by the Duke de Rianzares until 1867.  He went to Paris in 1866, was taken up by the Goupils, knew Meissonier and worked occasionally with Gerome.  His rococo pictures, his Oriental work set Paris ablaze.  He married the daughter of the Spanish painter Federigo Madrazo, and visited at Madrid, Granada, Seville, Rome, and, in 1874, London.  He contracted a pernicious fever at Rome and died there, November 21, 1874, at the age of thirty-six.  His funeral was imposing, many celebrities of the world of art participating.  He was buried in the Campo Varano.

In 1866 at Rome he began etching, and in fifteen months finished a series of masterpieces.  His line, surprisingly agile and sinuous, has the finesse of Goya—­whom he resembled at certain points.  He used aquatint with full knowledge of effects to be produced, and at times he recalls Rembrandt in the depth of his shadows.  His friend the painter Henri Regnault despaired in the presence of such versatility, such speed and ease of workmanship.  He wrote:  “The time I spent with Fortuny is haunting me still.  What a magnificent fellow he is!  He paints the most marvellous things, and is the master of us all.  I wish I could show you the two or three pictures he has in his hand or his etchings and water-colours.  They inspired me with a real disgust of my own.  Ah, Fortuny, you spoil my sleep!”