Portrait of a Lady with a Flower

Female portraits are unusual in El Greco's work. His Toledo years went on saints, altarpieces and grave-faced gentlemen, not on women. This young woman, shown close up with a flower set in her dark hair, is one of the few, and no one is sure who she was. Some have proposed Jerónima de las Cuevas, the companion who shared his life in Toledo and the mother of his son, though there is no firm evidence for it. The portrait belongs to the years around 1600, when El Greco had long left behind the naturalism of his Italian training for the tall, flickering figures of his Spanish manner. It has passed through private hands rather than a public gallery, part of why it stays less known than his great religious canvases.