THE IRIS 69 



Philip the Good of Burgundy, and from the 

 Hispano-Mauresque types in some of the later 

 work of the Master of Flemalle there is reason 

 to think that he, too, had been in the peninsula. 

 The symbol of the Flemish painters which 

 particularly appealed to the Spanish was the 

 iris, which grew small and wild upon their own 

 hills, and with a freer, heavier growth in the 

 palace gardens, whose admirable water-works 

 had been planned and executed by the despised 

 Moors. They adopted the iris as the royal 

 lily of the Virgin, the attribute of the Queen of 

 Heaven, as the lilium candidum was the attri- 

 bute of the Maid of Nazareth. The iris, there- 

 fore, was deemed particularly suitable as a 

 detail in that most favourite Spanish devotional 

 representation of the Virgin, an ' Immaculate 

 Conception.' The Virgin, represented as the 

 woman * clothed with the sun and the moon 

 beneath her feet,' is usually attended by child 

 angels who carry roses, lilies, palm and ohve. 

 The purple iris is generally added, and sometimes 

 the white lily is omitted and the iris only given. 

 The Spaniards, therefore, attached the same 

 idea of royalty to the iris as did the Flemings, 



