Apostle Saint Simon

El Greco spent his last years in Toledo painting the same 13 figures over and over, Christ and the apostles, a set the Spanish call an apostolado, made for churches and for private patrons. This one belongs to the group now in the house museum named after him, and it was probably still unfinished business when he died in 1614. A few of its canvases are complete down to the last glaze. Others, this one among them, stop earlier, with the head and beard still showing the dark underpainting he laid in first. Some specialists read that as an unfinished passage, others as the hand of the workshop rather than the master. Simon is normally identified by the saw he was said to have been martyred with. Here he holds an open book instead, which has had him confused with Matthew more than once.