By King Philip’s second marriage he brought to the Spanish court as his wife the Princess Mariana of Austria, who was then only fourteen years of age. The young queen was of course frequently portrayed by the court painter, but she did not make a very attractive subject for his skill, with her rather dull eyes and her full lips, and cheeks plentifully bedaubed with rouge.

As there was a difference of but three years in the ages of the child-wife and the Princess Maria Theresa, the two were constant companions; and when the Princess Margaret was christened, the elder sister stood as godmother with great dignity. A pretty story is related that on the way to the chapel for the christening, Maria Theresa let slip from her finger a costly ring, which a poor woman picked up to return to her. “Keep it,” said the little princess, with true royal tact; “God has sent it to you.”

The Princess Margaret became the darling of the court, and her blonde beauty is immortalized in many portraits by Velasquez. The most famous of these is the picture called “Las Meninas,” or The Maids of Honor, in which the young princess is the central figure of a group of devoted attendants. The composition is a veritable masterpiece, representing with perfect naturalness a daily scene in the palace. The princess rules with a sweet, complacent smile, and one can well imagine what an object of admiration her fair hair and blue eyes must have been among the swarthy, dark-eyed Spaniards.

[princess margaret.—velasquez.]

Another celebrated painting of the same child is in the Louvre at Paris, where it is a centre of attraction for art lovers and copyists, on account of the exquisite delicacy of its technique. It is a half-length portrait, showing a winning face, with wide, earnest eyes, and a demure little mouth. The fair hair is parted at one side, where it is caught back with a ribbon bow,—a style which the princess is said to have retained even after her marriage with the Emperor Leopold.

From an artist’s point of view, the beauty of the Velasquez child portraits is greatly injured by the grotesque fashions of the times. A long stiff corset and an immense oval hoop entirely precluded any possibility of grace in the attitude of the little princesses, while a ridiculously artificial style of dressing the hair completed the absurdity of a costume which was the laughing-stock of Europe.

Van Dyck was in this respect far more fortunate in his surroundings, and the full, lustrous folds of satin in which the English royal children were arrayed, gave him ample scope for an exquisite disposition of light and shade.

Independently of purely artistic principles, we should be sorry to lose from the pictures of either artist that element of interest and fascination which the costumes of an earlier epoch always arouse. The Princess Maria Theresa would be less interesting without her big hoop, and the Princess Mary less dignified without her voluminous satin; Charles would scarcely be the prince that he is, if lacking his broad lace collar, and Prince Balthasar would lose much of his charm, deprived of his red and green bravery. There is, in fact, no detail in any of these pictures which does not throw light upon the phase of life which they portray.