Altarpieces of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Charity (Illescas)

In 1603 the town of Illescas, halfway between Madrid and Toledo, was building a proper church for an image of the Virgin it had venerated for centuries, one credited with working miracles. El Greco, by then in his sixties in Toledo, took the commission to fill its sanctuary. He and his workshop, including his son Jorge Manuel, delivered four canvases glorifying the Virgin of Charity, among them a Coronation, an Annunciation and a Nativity, and designed the altar framework that holds them. The job ended in a long dispute over what the work was worth, with the brotherhood and the painter each naming their own appraisers. The paintings never left. They still hang in the shrine at Illescas that was raised to receive them.