“ Another visit to Paris in 1870 was followed by a two years’ stay at Granada, but then he returned to Rome, where he died somewhat suddenly on the 21st of November 1874 from an attack of malarial fever, contracted while painting in the open air at Naples and Portici in the summer of 1874.
The work which Fortuny accomplished during his short life is distinguished by a superlative facility of execution and a marvellous cleverness in the arrangement of brilliant hues, but the qualities of his art are those that are attainable by a master of technical resource rather than by a deep thinker. ”

“ FORTUNY, MARIANO JOSE MARIA BERNARDO (1838–1874) , Spanish painter, was born at Reus on the 11th of June 1838. His parents, who were in poor circumstances, sent him for education to the primary school of his native town, where he received some instruction in the rudiments of art. When he was twelve years old his parents died and he came under the care of his grandfather, who, though a joiner by trade, had made a collection of wax figures, with which he was travelling from town to town. ”

“ He entered the Academy of Barcelona and worked there for four years under Claudio Lorenzale, and in March 1857 he gained a scholarship that entitled him to complete his studies in Rome. Then followed a period of more than two years, during which he laboured steadily at copies of the old pictures to which he had access at Rome. To this period an end was put by the outbreak of the war between Spain and the emperor of Morocco, as Fortuny was sent by the authorities of Barcelona to paint the most striking incidents of the campaign. ”