great ability to evoke religious feelings made him very successful in receiving commissions in conservative Counter-Reformation Seville. Sharing the same painting master – Francisco Pacheco – as Velázquez, Alonso Cano (16601–1667) was also active in sculpture and architecture. His style moved from the naturalism of his early period, to a more delicate, idealistic approach, revealing Venetian and van Dyck influences. Velázquez Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he created scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners. In many portraits, Velázquez gave a dignified quality to less fortunate members of society like beggars and dwarfs. In contrast to these portraits, the gods and goddesses of Velázquez tend to be portrayed as common people, without divine characteristics. Besides the forty portraits of Philip by Velázquez, he painted portraits of other members of the royal family, including princes, infantas (princesses), and queens. Later Baroque Later Baroque elements were introduced as a foreign influence, through visits to Spain by Rubens, and the circulation of artists and patrons between Spain and the Spanish possessions of Naples and the Spanish Netherlands. Significant Spanish painters taking up the new style were Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614–1685), Francisco Rizi (1614–1685) and Francisco de Herrera the Younger (1627–1685), son of Francisco de Herrera the Elder an initiator of the naturalist emphasis of the Seville School. Other notable Baroque painters were Claudio Coello (1642–1693), Antonio de Pereda (1611–1678), Mateo Cerezo (1637–1666) and Juan de Valdés Leal (1622–1690). The pre-eminent painter of the period – and most famous Spanish painter prior to the 19th century appreciation of Velázquez, Zurbarán and El Greco – was Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). Working for most of his career in Seville, his early work reflected the naturalism of Caravaggio, using a subdued, brown palette, simple but not harsh lighting, and religious themes that are portrayed in a natural or domestic setting, as in his Holy Family with a Little Bird (c. 1650). Later he incorporated elements of the Flemish Baroque from Rubens and Van Dyck. In the Soult Immaculate Conception, a brighter and more radiant colour range is used, the swirling cherubs bringing all the focus upon the Virgin, whose heavenward gaze and diffuse and warmly glowing halo make it an effective devotional image, an important component of his