eco,
whose daughter he eventually married.

Pacheco who was, besides being an accomplished artist, a man of literary
tastes, and much sought after in Seville by the more intellectual class
of society, was exceedingly proud of his pupil, and said of him that he
was induced to bestow the hand of his daughter upon him "by the
rectitude of his conduct, the purity of his morals, and his great
talents, and from the high expectation he entertained of his natural
abilities and transcendent genius," adding that the honour of having
been his instructor was far greater than that of being his
father-in-law, and that he felt it no demerit to be surpassed by so
brilliant a pupil.

In 1649 Pacheco published a book on painting, in which we are told that
the first attempts of Velasquez were studies in still life, or simple
compositions of actual figures, called _bodegones_ in Spanish, of which
we have a fair example at the National Gallery in the _Christ at the
House of Martha_. Sir Frederick Cook, at Richmond, has another, an _Old
Woman Frying Eggs_, and the Duke of Wellington two more, of which _The
Water Carrier of Seville_ is probably the summit of the young painter's
achievement before he left Seville, in 1623, and entered the service of
Philip IV. as Court painter.

His first portrait of the king was the magnificent whole length in the
Prado Gallery, now numbered 1182, standing in front of a table with a
letter in his right hand. No. 1183 is the head of the same portrait,
possibly done as a study for it. Philip was so pleased with this that he
ordered all existing portraits of himself to be removed from the palace,
and appointed Velasquez exclusively as his painter.

Another of his earliest successes at Court was the whole length portrait
of the king's brother, Don Carlos, holding a glove in his right hand;
and the picture now in the Museum at Rouen of _A Geographer_ is probably
of this date.

In 1628, when Velasquez was still quite young, and had fallen under no
influence save that of Pacheco and the school of Seville, he was charged
by the king to entertain Rubens, who came to the Spanish Court on a
diplomatic mission, and show him all the treasures in the palace. If any
one could influence Velasquez, we might suppose it would have been
Rubens, who was not only a great painter, but a man of the most
captivating manners and disposition, ever ready to help younger artists.
But not only did he have no perceptible effect on th