An Anchorite

In 1794 a group of paintings from the Spanish royal palaces was moved out to the monastery of El Escorial and hung in its upper cloister. This canvas went with them, listed as number 79, and the 79 is still painted in the lower right corner. What it shows is an old man in a dark habit, head bowed, holding a rough wooden cross in both hands. No halo, no book, no lion, no skull placed where you would see it. Hermits were painted by the hundred in Spain and in Spanish-ruled Naples, and it was the attribute that told a viewer which one he was looking at, a raven and a loaf for Paul of Thebes, a bell for Anthony Abbot. This one carries nothing of the kind, which is why the museum still calls him simply an anchorite, a man who withdrew to live alone. The light picks out the white hair and the knuckles and leaves the rest of him to the dark.