self at work on a
large picture of the royal family. The painter represented himself with
the key of his office at his girdle, and on his breast the red cross of
the Order of Santiago. Philip, who came every day to see the progress of
this picture, remarked in reference to the figure of the artist, that
'one thing was yet wanting, and taking up the brush painted the knightly
insignia with his own royal fingers, thus conferring the accolade with a
weapon not recognized in chivalry.'

As it is believed, Velasquez's court office, with all its prestige and
influence, helped in causing his death. King Philip went in June, 1660,
to the Isle of Pheasants in the river Bidassa, where, on ground which
was neither Spanish nor French, the Spanish and French courts were to
meet and celebrate with the greatest magnificence the marriage of the
Grand Monarque and the Infanta Maria Teresa. One of Velasquez's
official duties was to prepare lodgings for the king on his journeys,
and in this instance the lodging included not only the decoration of the
castle of Fuenterrabia, but the erection of a sumptuous pavilion in
which the interviews of the assembled kings and queens and their
revelries were to be held. Velasquez did his part of the preparations,
and doubtless shared in the royal festivities, but returned to Madrid so
worn out by his undertaking, and by constant attendance on his master,
that he was seized with tertian fever, of which he died a few days
later, while but in his sixty-first year, to the great grief of his
countrymen, and above all of his king. Velasquez's wife, Dona Juana,
died eight days after her husband, and was buried in his grave. The
couple left one surviving child, a daughter, married to a painter.

In one picture, now at Vienna, Velasquez gives a glimpse of his family
life at a time when it would seem that he had four sons and two
daughters, so that the fortunate painter's home had not been free from
one shadow--that of death, which must have robbed him of five of his
children. In this pleasant picture, 'his wife dressed in a brown tunic
over a red petticoat, sits in the foreground of a large room, with a
pretty little girl leaning on her knees, and the rest of her children
grouped around her; behind are the men in deep shadow, one of them,
perhaps, being Mazo, the lover or the husband of the eldest daughter,
and a nurse with a child; and in an alcove Velasquez himself appears,
standing before his easel, at wor