ground of intense blue,
produce a strange but wonderfully harmonious effect of color. M.
Madrazzo's eldest daughter was the wife of the young and lamented
Fortuny, and her bright and lovely face reappears in many, if not in
most, of the compositions of her gifted husband.

Fortuny, who sold his first picture to a costermonger in Madrid for a
bag of peas, is represented at the Champ de Mars by several canvases,
the smallest of which would bring forty thousand francs. His best works
are in France. _The Wedding at the Vicarage_, his chef-d'oeuvre,
belongs to Madame de Cassin; M. Andre owns his _Serpent-Charmer_; and
the well-known _Choice of a Model_ and _The Judgment-Hall at Granada_
are in the possession of M. Stewart, the painter's intimate friend,
whose collection of Fortuny's works is worth, at the current prices of
the day, not less than six hundred thousand francs. Fortuny's painting
is indescribable. It has the sparkle of diamonds and rubies and emeralds
in the brilliant light of a ball-room. His figures are small, and as
minutely elaborated and as highly finished as those of Meissonier
himself, whose cherished pupil he was; and I could not but smile, while
examining them, at the notion of an enthusiastic young Philadelphian, an
almost idolatrous worshipper of Fortuny, that he could imitate this
incomparable work by a rapid and free sort of sketching, and all on the
faith of two pictures of the master which he had had the happiness to
see at an exhibition in Broad street. The immense influence of Fortuny
upon the younger contemporary painters of Spain is very apparent in the
Exposition. MM. Rico, Simonetti, Domingo, Melida, Casanova vie with each
other in their imitation of his manner, but, excellent artists as they
are, they are doing so at the expense of originality. The qualities of
Fortuny belonged to the nature and temperament of this extraordinary
artist, and are not to be acquired by any amount of labor or by any
effort of will.

My favorite corner at the Champ de Mars is here before the sparkling
little canvases of the Spanish master. But this prodigality of color
will sometimes dazzle and fatigue the eye, and turning from it one sees,
framed by the heavy red curtains which enclose the Spanish gallery, the
immense canvas of the Austrian Hans Makart. This is the _Entry of
Charles V. into Antwerp_. The emperor is surrounded by nearly nude
women, who in the midst of horsemen and men-at-arms are offering him