Portrait of a Trinitarian Friar

Artist Doménikos Theotokópoulos, called El Greco (Greek, 1541 - 1614)

Dateca. 1609

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 36 3/8 x 33 5/8 inches (92.39 x 85.41 cm)
Framed: 48 x 45 1/4 x 3 inches (121.92 x 114.94 x 7.62 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number52-23

Signedl.r., on the arm of the chair in tiny, cursive Greek letters: "doménikos theotokópoulos e'poíei"

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionSeated monk, three-quarter length. In white habit, over which dark brown robe and cape with hood. Maltese Cross with rose madder and blue arms on left edge of robe and on front of white gown. Right hand grasping arm of chair; left hand holding spectacles case. Leather chair back; right, studded with nails and with ornament at corner.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Spanish Painting, Royal Academy of Arts, London, November 1920-January 1921, no. 38.

Director’s Choice, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. FL, February 6-March 4, 1955, no. 7.

Spanish Masters, UCLA Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles, January 24-March 6, 1960; Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, March 25-May 1, 1960, no. 5.

Masterpieces of Paintings and Drawings, Wildenstein and Co., New York, April 6-May 7, 1961, no. 10.

Inaugural Exhibition, St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, Florida, February 7-March 7, 1965, no. 55.

El Greco Exhibition, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, October 18-December 14, 1986; Nara Prefectural Museum of Art, January 6-March 1, 1987; Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, March 11-24, 1987.

El Greco and Modernism, Museum Kunstpalast, April 21, 2012-August 5, 2012, no. 132.

The Greek of Toledo, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain, March 14, 2014-June 14, 2014, no. 26.

El Greco, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 14, 2019–February 10, 2020; Art Institute of Chicago, March 7, 2020–October 19, 2020.

Gallery Label

This painting of an unknown friar, who holds a case with spectacles, is one of El Greco’s last portraits. Although his expression is cool and detached, the friar’s robes are painted with energetic brushstrokes. This dynamic drapery conveys an intensity that perhaps symbolizes his religious devotion. In all of his portraits, El Greco emphasizes the sitters’ presence by depicting them in somber attitudes against sparse backgrounds. While today El Greco is known primarily for his religious paintings, in his own time he was recognized as a portraitist.

Provenance

Andrés Avelino de Salabert y Arteaga, 8th Marqués de la Torrecilla (1864-1925), Madrid, as Retrato de un trinitario calzado, by 1908-1925;

By descent to his nephew, Luis Jesús Fernández de Córdoba y Salabert, 17th Duque de Medinaceli and 10th Marqués de la Torrecilla, 1925-1950;

Purchased from Fernández de Córdoba y Salabert by Wildenstein and Co., New York, 1950-1952;

Purchased from Wildenstein by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1952.

Published References

Manuel B. Cossio, El Greco (Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, 1908), 1: 443-44, 575; 3: unpaginated, (repro.).

August L. Mayer, El Greco: Eine Einführung in das Leben und Wirken Domenico Theotocopuli genannt El Greco (Munich: Delphin Verlag, 1911), 87.

Paul Lafond, Le Greco: essai sur sa vie et sur son oeuvre suivi d’un catalogue et d’une bibliographie illustré de nombreuses reproductions (Paris: E. Sansot et cie, 1913), IX.

Aureliano de Beruete y Moret, El Greco: Pintor de Retratos (Toledo, 1913), 19-20.

Hugo Kehrer, Die Kunst des Greco, 3^rd rev. ed. (Munich: Hugo Schmidt Verlag, 1914), 59.

Exhibition of Spanish paintings at the Royal Academy, exh. cat. (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1920), 18, 30, (repro.).

D. Aureliano de Beruete y Moret, “Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Paintings at the Royal Academy,” The Connoisseur 58, no. 229 (September 1920): 194.

C.J. Holmes, “Spanish Painting at the Burlington House,” The Burlington Magazine 37, no. 213 (December 1920): 270.

A. de Beruete y Moret, “Spanish Painting,” special number, The Studio (1921): 9.

August L. Mayer, Il Greco: trenta riproduzioni con testo e catalogo, vol. 8 (Rome: Società editrice della biblioteca d’arte illustrate, 1922), 16.

August L. Mayer, Dominico Theotocopuli, El Greco: Kritisches und Illustriertes Verzeichnis des Gesamtwerkes (Munich: Franz Hanfstaengl, 1926), no. 349, p. 54, (repro.).

Valentina Magnoni, Il Greco (Florence: Casa Editrice “Nemi,” 1931), 76.

August L. Mayer, El Greco (Berlin: Klinkhardt and Biermann, 1931), 143.

Maurice Legendre and A. Hartmann, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, called El Greco (London: Commodore Press, 1937), 66, (repro.).

José Camón Aznar, Domenico Greco, vol. 2 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1950), 1142, 1145-1147, (repro.).

Time Magazine 60, no. 23 (December 1, 1952): 54.

“Enriching Museums,” ARTnews 51, no. 8 (December 1952): 29, (repro.).

“Recent Acquisitions,” Pictures on Exhibit 15, no. 3 (December 1952): 4, 57, (repro.).

Director’s Choice: A Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (Sarasota, FL: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 1955), unpaginated, (repro.)

Spanish Masters, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: UCLA Art Galleries, 1960), unpaginated.

Masterpieces of Paintings and Drawings, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein and Co.,1961), unpaginated.

Harold Edwin Wethey, El Greco and his school, vol. 2, Catalogue Raisonné (Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1962), no. 159, pp. 97-98.

Inaugural Exhibition, exh. cat. (St. Petersburg, FL: Museum of Fine Arts, 1965), unpaginated.

Horace H. F. Jayne, “El Greco’s ‘Monk’: A Master Revealed,” St. Petersburg Times (January 3, 1965): 3, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 106, (repro.).

John D. Morse, Old master paintings in North America: over 3000 masterpieces by 50 great artists (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 154, (repro.).

Fernando Marías, El Greco: biografía de un pintor extravagante (Madrid: Nerea, 1997), 261, (repro.).

Javier Pérez Portús, Spanish Portraits from El Greco to Picasso (London: Scala, 2004), 127, (repro.)

Beat Wismer and Michael Scholz-Hänsel, eds., El Greco and Modernism, exh. cat. (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2012), 132-33, (repro.).

Fernando Marías, ed., El Greco of Toledo: Painter of the visible and the invisible, exh. cat. (Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 2014), unpaginated.

Rebecca J. Long, ed., El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2020).

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