ZURBARAN, Francisco (1598-1662), a distinguished Spanish painter, was born at Fuente de Cantos in Estremadura on 7th November 1598. His father was named Luis Zurbaran, a country labourer, his mother Isabel Marquet. The lot apparently marked out for Francisco was that of tilling the ground, like his father; but his natural faculty had decided otherwise. In mere childhood he set about imitating objects with charcoal; and his father was quick-witted and long-headed enough to take him off, still extremely young, to the school of Juan de Roélas in Seville. Francisco soon became the best pupil in the studio of Roélas, surpassing the master himself; and before leaving him he had achieved a solid reputation, full though Seville then was of able painters. He may probably have had here the opportunity of copying some of the paintings of Michelangelo da Caravaggio; at any rate he gained the name of “the Spanish Caravaggio,” owing to the very forcible realistic style in which he excelled. He constantly painted direct from nature, following but occasionally improving on his model; and he made great use of the lay-figure in the study of draperies, in which he was peculiarly proficient. He had a special gift for white draperies; and, as a natural consequence, Carthusian monks are abundant in his paintings. To these rigidly faithful methods of work Zurbaran is said to have adhered throughout his career, which was always eminent and prosperous, wholly confined to his native Spain, and varied by few incidents beyond those of his daily laborious and continually productive diligence. His subjects were mostly of a severe and ascetic kind,—religious vigils, the flesh chastised into subjection to the spirit,—the compositions seldom thronged, and often reduced to a single figure. The ...