These sudden entrances of royalty upon the scene added enormously to the interest of our life in Madrid. The marriage of the Infanta, the betrothal and the marriage of the King brought more royal visitors to Madrid that season than usual, and they all came to the Prado. The Museum has for them an especial attraction apart from the artistic interest. The Prado contains portraits of the ancestors of most of the royal personages in Europe, and they are naturally interested in seeing their family portraits. The collection begun by Charles V, and constantly added to by his descendants, is essentially a royal collection. Isabel II generously
VENUS AND CUPID. Velasquez
gave the pictures to the Spanish nation. How generously that gift is shared with the artists and art lovers of all nations, every visitor to the Prado knows.
Villegas hurried off to prepare for the visit of Don Carlos, the King of Portugal, and little Don Luis, still glad of an excuse not to go back to work, offered to take me to see Don Carlos the Bohemian. We found him in a big barrack of a lumber-room smelling of paint, turpentine and varnish, at the top of the Prado. He was at work on a copy of the disputed portrait of Don John of Austria. He threw down his palette and ran to meet Don Luis, rumpling up his hair with desperate hands.
“Was I mad to undertake it?” he cried. “It is the fourth Antonio Moro I have copied. Not another, not for a million.”
“Not for a million, no; what couldst thou do with it? But for—well, something else—yes, as many as thy grand duke will find room for in his museum!”
“The work that accursed Fleming put into a picture. I tell thee it is brutal to work so hard; he had the patience of a saint!”