Description
El Greco (Spanish for "the Greek") was trained on his native island, Crete, as a painter of small-scale devotional images (icons). In the late 1560s he moved first to Venice, where he may have worked with Tintoretto (1518-1594), and then to Rome. Finally, he settled in Toledo, Spain. Tintoretto's influence is visible here in the colors and in the elongated figural proportions. The graphic depiction of blood, however, may reflect the Spanish interest in Christ's sufferings as a subject for meditation.
Provenance
Convent of the Salesas, Madrid, Spain (By 1815-1952); Tomas Harris, London, England (1952); (Rudolf Heinemann, New York, NY); (M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (-1952); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1952-)
Accession Number
1952.222
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 221 x 144 x 10 cm (87 x 56 11/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 193 x 116 cm (76 x 45 11/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund