All the portraits of this lad are full
of charm. He was heir to the throne, but died in boyhood.
[Illustration: DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS
From the picture by Velasquez, in the Prado Museum, Madrid]
Velasquez paid another visit to Italy, twenty years after his first,
for the purpose of buying more pictures to adorn Philip's palaces.
Again we find him in Venice, where he bought two Tintorets and a
Veronese, and again he made a long stay in Rome, this time to paint
the portrait of the Pope. When he returned to Spain in 1651 he had
still nine years of work before him. There were portraits of Philip's
new Queen to be painted--a young girl in a most uncomfortable
dress--and portraits of her child, the Infanta Marguerita. Bewitching
are the pictures of this little princess at the ages of three, of four,
and of seven, with her fair hair tied in a bow at the side of her head,
and voluminous skirts of pink and silver. But sweetest of all is the
picture called 'The Maids of Honour' ('Les Meninas'), in which the
princess, aged about six, is being posed for her portrait. She is
petulant and tired, and two of her handmaidens are cajoling her to
stand still.
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