He hastily painted in a few of his sketches and sent them as presents to his friends in Barcelona.

The very haste of the work, the meager outline and simple colors—­glaring whites and limpid blues, with here and there a dash of red to indicate a scarf or sash—­astonished his old teachers.  Here were pictures painted in an hour that outmatched any of the carefully worked out, methodical attempts of the Academy!  It was all life, life, life—­palpitating life.

The sketches were shown, the men in power interviewed, and the city of Barcelona ordered Fortuny to paint one large picture to be eventually placed in the Parliament House to commemorate the victory of General Prim.

As an earnest of good faith a remittance of five hundred dollars accompanied the order.

The war was short.  At the battle of Wad Ras the enemy was routed after a pitched fight where marked dash and spirit were shown on both sides.

And so this was to be the scene of Fortuny’s great painting.  Hundreds of sketches were made, including portraits of General Prim and various officers.  Fortuny set about the work as a duty to his patrons who had so generously paved the way for all the good fortune that was his.  The painting was to be a world-beater; and Fortuny, young, strong, ambitious—­knowing no such word as fail—­went at the task.

Fortuny had associated with many artists at Rome and he had heard of that wonderful performance of Horace Vernet’s, the “Taking of the Smalah of Abd-el-Kader.”  This picture of Vernet’s, up to that time, was the largest picture ever held in a single frame.  It is seventy-one feet long and sixteen feet high.  To describe that picture of Vernet’s with its thousand figures, charging cavalry, flashing sabers, dust-clouds, fleeing cattle, stampeding buffalos, riderless horses, overturned tents, and fear-stricken, beautiful women would require a book.

In passing, it is well to say that this picture of Vernet’s is the parent of all the panorama pictures that have added to the ready cash of certain enterprising citizens of Chicago, and that Vernet is the father of the modern “military school.”

If you have seen Vernet’s painting you can never forget it, and if there were nothing else to see at Versailles but this one picture you would be repaid, and amply repaid, for going out from Paris to view it.

Before beginning his great canvas Fortuny was advised to go to Versailles and see the Vernet masterpiece.

He went and spent three days studying it in detail.

He turned away discouraged.  To know too much of what other men have said is death to a writer; for an artist to be too familiar with the best in art is to have inspiration ooze out at every pore.

Fortuny took a week to think it over.  He was not discouraged—­not he—­but he decided to postpone work on the masterpiece and busy himself for a while with simpler themes.  He remained at Paris and made his thumb-nail sketches:  a Moor in spotless white robe with red cap, leaning against a wall; a camel-driver at rest; a solitary horseman with long spear, a trellis with climbing vines, and a veiled beauty looking out from behind, etc.