Der heilige Paulus

El Greco was born on Crete while the island belonged to Venice, and long after he settled in Toledo he was still signing his paintings in Greek, in the Cretan form of his name. This Saint Paul, painted at the very end of the 1590s, carries the same allegiance in a detail: the folded paper between Paul's fingers has a line of Greek on it, naming Titus as the first bishop set over the Cretans, the disciple Paul addressed one of his letters to. Half-length apostles were steady business in Toledo then. Churches and private chapels ordered whole sets of the twelve, and El Greco's workshop supplied them, each figure known by its attribute, the sword here standing for the way Paul was put to death.