St. Francis and Brother Leo Meditating on Death

One of the most repeated images to come out of El Greco's workshop in Toledo was Saint Francis kneeling with a skull in his hands. After the Council of Trent the Spanish church wanted its saints shown in penance rather than in glory, and Francis with the skull, and Brother Leo watching from his feet, answered that demand exactly. More than 40 versions of the subject are counted today, some by El Greco himself, many by the hands he employed. The Brera canvas is one of the workshop pictures, dated by the museum between 1600 and 1610, when the shop was busy and the master was past sixty. It reached Milan very late. Brera bought it in the 1930s with money that came from a large exhibition of Italian art held in London.