The next year he visited Spain and was received at Madrid and Barcelona
as a prince. Decorations and ceremonials greeted him at Madrid; and at
Barcelona there were arches of triumph built over the streets, and a
hundred students drew his carriage from the steamboat-landing up to the
old Academy where he used to draw angles and curves from a copy all day
long.

And it was not so many moons after this little visit to Barcelona that
wedding-bells were sent a-swing, and Mariano Fortuny was married to
Cecilia, daughter of Federico Madrazo.

Their honeymoon of a year was spent at the Alhambra Palace amid the
scenes made famous by our own Washington Irving. And it was from Granada
that he sent a picture to America to be sold for the benefit of the
sufferers in the Chicago fire.

But there were no idle days. The artist worked with diligence, dipping
deep into the old Moorish life, and catching the queer angles of old
ruins and more queer humanity upon his palette. His noble wife proved his
mate in very deed, and much of his best work is traceable to her loving
criticism and inspiration.

Paris, Granada and Rome were their home, each in turn. The prices Fortuny
realized were even greater than Meissonier commanded. Some of his best
pieces are owned in America, through the efforts of W. H. Stewart of
Philadelphia. At the A. T. Stewart sale, in New York, the "Fortunys"
brought higher prices than anything else in the collection, save, I
believe, the "1807" of Meissonier. In fact, there are more "Fortunys"
owned in New York than there are in either Barcelona or Madrid.