And in all these pictures is dazzling sunshine and living life.  The joy of them, the ease, the grace, the beauty, are matchless.

Goupil and Company, the art-dealers, contracted to take all the work he could turn out.  And Fortuny did not make the mistake of doing too much.  He possessed the artistic conscience, and nothing left his studio that did not satisfy his heart and head.

Trips had been taken to Florence, Venice and the beloved Morocco, and the poise and grace and limpid beauty of Fortuny’s pictures seemed to increase.

Three years had passed, and now came a letter from the authorities at Barcelona asking for their great battle picture, and a remittance was sent “to meet expenses.”

Fortuny promised, and made an effort at the work.

Another year went by and another letter of importunity came.  Barcelona did not comprehend how her gifted son was now being counted among the very ablest artists in Paris—­that world center of art.  Artists should struggle for recognition, be rebuffed, live on a crust in dingy garrets, cultivate a gaunt and haggard look, and wear suits shiny at the elbows!

How could the old professors down at Barcelona understand that this mere youth was pressed with commissions from rich Americans, and in receipt of a princely income?

Fortuny returned all the money that Barcelona had sent him, regarding it all as a mere loan, and promised to complete the battle picture whenever he could bring his mind to bear upon it so that the work would satisfy himself.

The next year he visited Spain and was received at Madrid and Barcelona as a prince.  Decorations and ceremonials greeted him at Madrid; and at Barcelona there were arches of triumph built over the streets, and a hundred students drew his carriage from the steamboat-landing up to the old Academy where he used to draw angles and curves from a copy all day long.

And it was not so many moons after this little visit to Barcelona that wedding-bells were sent a-swing, and Mariano Fortuny was married to Cecilia, daughter of Federico Madrazo.

Their honeymoon of a year was spent at the Alhambra Palace amid the scenes made famous by our own Washington Irving.  And it was from Granada that he sent a picture to America to be sold for the benefit of the sufferers in the Chicago fire.

But there were no idle days.  The artist worked with diligence, dipping deep into the old Moorish life, and catching the queer angles of old ruins and more queer humanity upon his palette.  His noble wife proved his mate in very deed, and much of his best work is traceable to her loving criticism and inspiration.

Paris, Granada and Rome were their home, each in turn.  The prices Fortuny realized were even greater than Meissonier commanded.  Some of his best pieces are owned in America, through the efforts of W. H. Stewart of Philadelphia.  At the A. T. Stewart sale, in New York, the “Fortunys” brought higher prices than anything else in the collection, save, I believe, the “1807” of Meissonier.  In fact, there are more “Fortunys” owned in New York than there are in either Barcelona or Madrid.