t seemed as if the hand
had no part in it, and it had been the work of pure thought."'
Velasquez, who must have seen many a bull fight, has left the world a
fine example of field sports in 'The Boar Hunt,' in our National
Gallery, a picture which was bought for two thousand two hundred pounds
from Lord Cowley. When ambassador at the Court of Spain, it was given to
him by Ferdinand VII. In a circular pen in the Pardo, 'Philip IV. and a
party of cavaliers display their skill in slaying boars, to a few
ladies, who sit secure in heavy old-fashioned blue coaches,' while
motley groups of courtiers and peasants, huntsmen and hounds, postilions
and their mules fill the foreground. Sir Edwin Landseer remarked of
this picture that he had never before seen 'so much large art on so
small a scale.'

Bartolome Estevan Murillo was born at Seville in 1618, and was therefore
nearly twenty years younger than his great countryman Velasquez. Murillo
seems to have been of obscure origin, and to have begun his life in
humble circumstances. There are traditions of his being self-taught, of
his studying ragged boys, himself little more than a boy, in the gypsy
quarter of Triana in Seville; of his painting in the marketplace, where
he probably found the originals of the heads of saints and Madonnas (by
which he made a little money in selling them for South America) in the
peasants who came to Seville with their fruit and vegetables. In 1642,
Murillo, then twenty-four years of age, visited Madrid, and was kindly
received, and aided in his art by his senior and fellow artist, the
court painter, Velasquez. It had been Murillo's intention to proceed to
England to study under Van Dyck, but the death of the latter put a stop
to the project. Murillo was prevented from making the painter's
pilgrimage to Italy by want of means, but the loss of culture was so far
supplied by the instructions given to him by Velasquez.

In 1645, when Murillo was twenty-seven years of age, he returned to
Seville, and settled there, becoming as successful as he deserved; and
being acknowledged as the head of the school of Seville, where he
established the Academy of Art, and was its first president. Murillo
married, in 1648, a lady of some fortune, and was accustomed to
entertain at his house the most exclusive society of Seville.

In 1682, Murillo was at Cadiz painting a picture of the marriage of St
Catherine in the church of the Capuchins there, when, in consequence of