Der heilige Bartholomäus

Near the end of his life, between 1610 and 1614, El Greco and his workshop in Toledo were painting a full set of Christ and the apostles, the kind of series known as an apostolado. This Saint Bartholomew is the odd one out. In El Greco's other apostle sets his place is given to Saint Luke, so Bartholomew turns up here alone, and he was left unfinished, pale in a plain white tunic while his companions wear strong colour. He holds two attributes. In one hand the knife of his flaying, the way he was martyred, and in the other a chain leading to a small devil, from the old legend that he once bound a demon. The whole group still hangs together in the El Greco Museum in Toledo.