Bildnis des Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli

For most of the 19th century people looked at this and saw El Greco himself. It is now generally taken to be his son, Jorge Manuel, painted in Toledo around 1600. The young man stands in black Spanish dress with a wide white ruff, holding brushes and a palette, because he too was a painter, trained in his father's workshop. He would go on to work as an architect and sculptor as well, and after El Greco died it fell to Jorge Manuel to finish and manage what the studio left behind, though his own paintings never reached his father's level. Against the dark ground the elongated hand and the elongated face are unmistakably El Greco's way of seeing. The ruff is painted as a loose flurry of white strokes rather than described lace, quick where the rest is still.