Portrait of a Gentleman from the Casa de Leiva

Around 1580 the painter from Crete who signed himself Domenikos Theotokopoulos, the man Spain called El Greco, the Greek, had just settled in Toledo. He had learned colour in Venice and drawing in Rome, and now he needed patrons, so he painted the local gentry. This sober young man in black, with the elongated features and dark, inward gaze that mark almost everyone El Greco touched, came from the Leiva family. Look at the bottom edge. The canvas was later cut down, which is why the fingers of his near hand simply stop. The stark white ruff and cuffs are the only bright notes he allowed, floating a living face out of the darkness.