Der Edelmann mit der Hand auf der Brust

Around 1580 El Greco had been in Toledo only a few years, a Greek trained in Venice trying to win over the stiff Spanish court of Philip the Second. This is the world he was painting into: sober, Catholic, dressed in black. The man wears exactly that, a plain black doublet and a crisp white ruff, and he lays his right hand flat on his chest as if swearing an oath. We still do not know who he is. The most convincing guess is Juan de Silva, a Toledo nobleman who kept the city's fortress, though others have proposed everyone from Cervantes to the king's own secretary. The gold hilt of his sword catches the only warm light in the picture.