His purchases and his own later canvases afford that inference.

On his return from Italy he painted a ceremonial picture as wall decoration for one of the palaces of Philip, and in it we can trace the influence of the great ceremonial paintings of the Venetians.

The picture commemorates the surrender of Breda in North Brabant, when the famous General Spinola received its keys for Philip IV.

It is far more than a series of separate figures.
Two armies, officers and men, are grouped in one transaction, in one near and far landscape.

It is a picture in which the foreground and the distances, with the lances of the soldiers and the smoke of battle, are as indispensable to the whole as are the central figures of the Dutchman in front handing the city keys to the courtly Spanish general.
Don Balthazar Carlos was born while Velasquez was in Italy.