THERE are still many gaps in our knowledge of Spain's most famous painter.* Although several important docu- ments have been brought to light over the past thirty years relating to Velizquez's activities as painter and courtier and to his Italian mission on behalf of Philip IV in 1649-51, only two of his letters have hitherto been published, and several key moments in his artistic career as well as many aspects of his life remain obscure.' The dis- covery of four autograph letters written between November 1649 and October 1650 (see the Appendix below and Figs.3 and 5) is therefore an event of some importance, especially as they shed fresh light on his second Italian sojourn, as well as providing fascinating evidence of his taste and judgment as connoisseur.

MURILLO's cycle of great decorative canvases on the theme of the Story of Jacob has long excited interest, not only in relation to the artist's oeuvre, but in the wider context of seventeenth-century Spanish painting.* The exceptionally large dimensions of the landscape settings in which the episodes take place are unusual for the artist, and in Spanish seventeenth-century painting generally. Hitherto four canvases from this cycle have been known, all in public collections: Isaac blessing Jacob and Jacob's dream in St Petersburg, Jacob laying peeled rods before the flocks of Laban in Dallas and Laban searching for his stolen household gods in Rachel's tent in Cleveland (Figs.7-10). The existence of a fifth has been known since the English dramatist and chronicler of art Richard Cumberland, who had seen the set in 1787 in the Marquis de Santiago's palace in Madrid, described it as consisting of 'five grand compositions exhibiting the Life ofJacob in the different periods of his history'. He believed these paintings to be the finest he had ever seen, with the exception of a Venus by Titian. A description of the fifth painting is given in the Alexis Delahante sale catalogue of 1817: 'A grand landscape, with the meeting ofJacob and Rachel. This truly capital picture was painted by Murillo for the Marquis of Santiago, in whose palace it remained until the Revolution [1808], when it was purchased with others of the same size relative to the History of Jacob, one of which was sold for 2,500 Guineas'. A painting closely corresponding to this de- scription (Fig.6) has recently been acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland where it greatly enriches the strong representation of Sevillian artists among the works of the Spanish school.3Might this be the missing fifth painting? Is the Jacob series now complete?

series now complete?

IN the spring of 1947 Joan Mirò made his first visit to New York, where he undertook work on the engravings for the second edition of Tristan Tzara's L'Antitête. He stayed with his dealer and friend Pierre Matisse, and worked with S.W. Hayter in Atelier 17, using various of the latter's innovatory techniques to attain a visual equivalent to Tzara's poetry. Hayter had moved the Atelier 17 to the United States in 1940, finally relocating the studio in New York at 41 East 8th Street in 1945. The following year Hayter experimented with simultaneous colour printing and in 1947, he, together with Ruthven Todd and Mirò, experimented with relief etching and printing.

He stayed with his dealer and friend Pierre Matisse, and worked with S.W. Hayter in Atelier 17, using various of the latter's innovatory techniques to attain a visual equivalent to Tzara's poetry. Hayter had moved the Atelier 17 to the United States in 1940, finally relocating the studio in New York at 41 East 8th Street in 1945. The following year Hayter experimented with simultaneous colour printing and in 1947, he, together with Ruthven Todd and Mirò, experimented with relief etching and printing.

SEVERAL years ago, while I was looking for something else, a photograph of a fresco said to be of Christ's descent into Limbo painted for S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli in Rome by Juan Fernaindez Navarrete, a Spanish artist then unknown to me, caught my attention (Fig.31).  Its style was so close to Daniele da Volterra's work at SS. Trinitai dei Monti that it seemed worth investigating, particularly since, almost simultaneously, I came upon a study for the central figure of Christ in Navarrete's painting (Fig.32). The drawing too appeared thoroughly Roman, remarkably imitative of the highly finished black chalk figure studies by Michelangelo and Daniele, and indeed, it had been classified as an imitation of, or possibly a copy after, Michelangelo. As with so many of the countless Spanish artists working in Rome during the sixteenth century, surviving documentation concerning Navarrete is meagre, scattered, and excessively difficult to trace. My own incomplete results are presented here, with apologies for the lacunae, in the hope that they will be of use to scholars working on the artist.

painted for S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli in Rome by Juan Fernaindez Navarrete, a Spanish artist then unknown to me, caught my attention (Fig.31).  Its style was so close to Daniele da Volterra's work at SS. Trinitai dei Monti that it seemed worth investigating, particularly since, almost simultaneously, I came upon a study for the central figure of Christ in Navarrete's painting (Fig.32). The drawing too appeared thoroughly Roman, remarkably imitative of the highly finished black chalk figure studies by Michelangelo and Daniele, and indeed, it had been classified as an imitation of, or possibly a copy after, Michelangelo. As with so many of the countless Spanish artists working in Rome during the sixteenth century, surviving documentation concerning Navarrete is meagre, scattered, and excessively difficult to trace. My own incomplete results are presented here, with apologies for the lacunae, in the hope that they will be of use to scholars working on the artist.

URING the last three decades of the eighteenth century the Spanish royal collection achieved a semi-public status as its riches were opened to distinguished travellers to Madrid, who in turn recorded their observations in a variety of accounts. These years also witnessed the formulation of a project to engrave its masterpieces, which was intended to enhance its reputation throughout Europe. The plan seems to have originated in 1777 and inspired twelve engravings by Madrid's leading artist in the medium, Juan Antonio Salvador Carmona; it has also been suggested that Goya made his etchings after Vela'zquez in response to the initiative, selling them privately when it was postponed. Although interest in the project was sporadic during the following decades, in 1805 Jose Camar6n was appointed court painter, with the responsibility of making preparatory drawings after the works. The Napoleonic war, the project for a royal museum (today, the Prado) initiated by the 'intruder king' Joseph Bona- parte, and finally the publication after 1825 of lithographs after the paintings displayed there eventually made the late-eighteenth- century initiative obsolete.

ALTHOUGH Goya's unsigned portrait of a lady in the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Fig.36) was identified in the 1920s as being of Señora Sabasa Garcìa, no evidence to confirm this identification has hitherto come to light. A curious double portrait (Fig.35), found in England and brought to my attention by its owner, now provides evidence for both the identity of the sitter in the Washington picture and its date: on the verso of the small, unlined canvas of the double portrait is inscribed in a dark ink apparently contemporary with the painting: 'Señora/Sabasa Garcìa/ 1807 (fig.38).

(fig.38).

DAVID KIGHLEY BAXANDALL, Director of the National Galleries of Scotland from 1952 to 1970, died on 17th October at the age of 87. His career in museums began at the National Museum of Wales as early as 1928, when he was 23. It was not the most active period of museum history, nor was the art department, perhaps, at that time the most important in the museum. His official duties were mainly concerned with ceramics, including the supervision of excavations. Yet in important ways this was the most formative period of his life. He loved Wales, and he also had time to develop his interest in modern British art, then in its early idealistic and uncommercial phase, which agreed perfectly with Baxandall's own way of thinking. Born and educated in London (where he read English under Israel Gollancz at King's College), but now removed from it, he developed at that time a sense of what was due from a scholar to a wider public outside London - a patient but persistent exposition of the values he held dear, and which, so rarely in his generation, he found in modern art.

ANCIENT intaglios have always been collected and prized, but perhaps never more so than in the period from the renaissance to the seventeenth century. Despite much evi- dence of admiration, however, we know very little about individual collections of gems or the ways in which they were studied. A hitherto unpublished correspondence be- tween the young Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and the Roman antiquarian Lelio Pasqualini in the years around 1600 (see the Appendix below) not only provides evidence about the activity of collectors but also gives some fascinat- ing insights into how gems were discussed and appreciated.

AT the beginning of 1826, William Camden Edwards, an engraver involved in Dawson Turner's unsuccessful attempt to publish William Roscoe's catalogue of the manuscripts at Holkham Hall, wrote to Turner as follows: 'Mr Palgrave [Turner's son-in-law] very kindly wrote me of . . . the purchase of curious pictures that you have made, I think the thought excellent and, as far as my knowledge goes, new'.