FINE ARTS.
THE SPANISH PICTURES.
We are happy in being enabled, through the kindness of Baron TAYLOR, to promise the lovers of art some interesting information next week relative to the Spanish pictures which be has been collect- ing in the Peninsula for the King of the French. All that is known in this country of the Spanish school is from the works of Muniuo and VELASQUEZ; RIBIERA, MORALES, and ZURBARAN, are little else than names to us : yet there are upwards of a hundred painters of first- rate talent, specimens of *hose works have been procured by Baron TAYLOR. The VELASQUEZ, belonging to Mr. BRACKENBURY, which was offered to the Trustees of our National Gallery, and by them de- clined, has likewise been purchased by Baron TAYLOR for Louis Prime, at 1,1001. This, we believe, is the picture alluded to in a paragraph that we quoted from some paper two or three weeks ago, and which, from its being in suspicious company, we regarded as the avant courrier of a job. Perhaps, indeed, it might have been made so to this country. The price is moderate for so tine a specimen of VELASQUEZ as this is described to be : but it is a question if the nation would have been allowed to get it for this sum by the middle- men who profit by official ignorance and indolence. Again we reiterate our demand for an Institute of Art, to insure judgment, promptitude, and publicity in the conduct of these matters, instead of secrecy, inde- cision, and rashness.
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