THE “MEETING OF THIRTEEN PEOPLE”
There have been great divergences of opinion concerning the strange little painting representing a Meeting of Thirteen People (No. 1734) on a hill. It was formerly known as A Meeting of Artists, because two of the Spanish cavaliers depicted in the group were believed to represent Velazquez and Murillo. Lauded at first as one of Velazquez’s masterpieces by those who were carried away by the truly extraordinary beauty of the pearly, opalescent colour harmony and the atmospheric quality of the painting, the little picture has lately been as violently abused for its “poor design, weak execution, and commonplace arrangement.” As a matter of fact the arrangement is anything but commonplace, and the picture has great qualities of technique which will always be the delight of professional artists. It is moreover admirably varied in gesture and action, even if it has certain weaknesses which render impossible its unqualified attribution to Velazquez. Here we have clearly an excellent example of his son-in-law and imitator, J. B. del Mazo. If any proof were needed for this attribution, it will be found in the figure on the extreme left of the composition. Both his legs are slanting forward so much that his centre of gravity plumbs behind his heels. It would really be impossible to maintain this posture, which, though it offends against the laws of gravity, is to be found in quite a number of Mazo’s pictures, as, for instance, in the small figure of Olivarez (?) in the middle distance on the right in the Duke of Westminster’s Don Baltazar Carlos in the Riding School, in the portrait of Don Baltazar Carlos at The Hague, and in the second boy in The Family of Mazo at the Vienna Gallery.
The soundly painted Portrait of Don Pedro de Altamira, Doyen of the Chapel Royal at Toledo, afterwards Cardinal (No. 1737), inscribed on the background “æt 54 dv, 1633,” is a good character-study of an energetic and rather worldly-looking Church dignitary, but does not appear to be either by Velazquez or one of his immediate followers.
There is in the Spanish section of the Louvre another superbly painted, but very problematic, Head of a Man (No. 1747), which, on no more plausible grounds than an accidental likeness to one of the figures in The Forge of Vulcan, has by some critics been believed to be by Velazquez. The rich impasto and the careful finish of the painting are utterly unlike Velazquez’s manner; nor does the picture appear to be of his period. But whoever may be its author, it is one of the most remarkable paintings in this section of the Louvre.