Madonna and Child

In 1639 the pictures in the chapel of the castle of Batres, near Madrid, were valued and sold off. The house belonged to the heirs of Pedro Laso de la Vega, the first Count of Los Arcos, a nobleman who owned several works by El Greco, and among them was a Nuestra Señora de la Leche, Our Lady of the Milk, by his hand. Historians trying to trace that picture have found only three nursing Virgins by El Greco. One, in Toledo, also shows Saint Joseph and Saint Anne. Another, now at the Hispanic Society in New York, includes Joseph. This canvas, just under a metre tall, is the one that shows only Mary feeding the Child, which the El Greco scholar Harold Wethey noted as unique among his surviving works. It came from the Perinat family, marquesses of Campo Real, in Madrid, and whether it is the Batres picture is still an open question. An inventory of El Greco's own belongings also lists a small Virgin of the Milk.