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It was at Perrin's instigation that I had asked to become a Societaire, and now I regretted it very much. During all the latter part of the year I only played occasionally. My time was then occupied in looking after the building of a pretty little mansion which I was having erected at the corner of the Avenue de Villiers and the Rue Fortuny.
A landscape by Constable, a water color by Fortuny, and a rough sketch by Détaille; and the inevitable marines, such as one might expect in the house of a fighting sailor. He examined these closely, and was rather pleased to find them valuable old prints. And, better to his mind than all these, was the deft, mysterious touch or suggestion of a woman's hand.
This was about 1860, and this man, A.T. Stewart, bought two of Fortuny's pictures at high prices. "The Serpent Charmer," and "A Fantasy of Morocco." When Fortuny was thirty years old he married the daughter of a Spaniard called Madrazo, director of the Royal Museum. His wife's family had several well known artists in it, and the marriage was a very happy one.
Everything is relative, and the scale on which Fortuny worked was as true a medium for the exhibition of his genius as a museum panorama. Let us not be misled by the worship of the elephantine. It is characteristic of his temperament that the big battle piece he was commissioned by the Barcelona Academy to paint was never finished. Not every one who goes to Rome does as the Romans do.
And then there came to him a brusk notification from Claudio Lorenzale, the Director of the Academy, to the effect that certain sums had been provided by the City of Barcelona to pay the expenses of four of the most worthy pupils at the Academy, and Mariano Fortuny had been voted as one who should receive the benefit of the endowment.
Other Durer pictures are: "The Knight, Death and the Devil," "The Adoration of the Magi," "Melancholy," and portraits of himself. Fortuny won his own opportunities. He took a prize, while still very young, which made it possible for him to go to Rome where he wished to study art.
General Prim, soldier and scholar, saw that his secretary was capable of doing something more than keeping accounts, and so a substitute was hired and Fortuny was sent here and there as messenger, but in reality, so that he could see as many sides of old Moorish life as possible. Staid old General Prim loved the young man just as Madrazo had.
When some busybody informed Meissonier that Fortuny was imitating him, Meissonier replied, "To have such a genius as Mariano Fortuny imitate me would be the greatest happiness of my whole career." Fortuny's life is mirrored in his name: his whole career was one triumphant march to fortune, fame, love and honor.
People are strewn about like flowers, and the whole effect is airy and inconsequent. Fortuny painted also "The Praying Arab," "A Fantasy of Morocco," "Snake Charmers," "Camels at Rest," etc. English School 1727-1788 Pupil of Gravelot and of Hayman There seems to have been no artist, with the extraordinary exceptions of Durer and Leonardo, who learned his lessons while at school.
"A Fortuny, by thunder!" burst out Waller. He had been the first man to recognize Oliver's talent in the old days and had always felt proud of his foresight.
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