St James the Greater

Around 1600, in the last decade of his life, El Greco's Toledo workshop was turning out apostolados, matched sets of 13 half-length figures, Christ together with his 12 apostles, painted over and over for Spanish churches. This is one of those apostles, James the Greater, the saint Spain took as its own, the Santiago whose shrine at Compostela had drawn pilgrims across Europe for centuries. Because the sets were repeated so often, and studio assistants shared the work, the Basel picture is catalogued as El Greco and his school rather than the master's hand alone, and how much he painted here is still argued. Three of these apostle series survive more or less whole, in the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral, in Oviedo, and in the El Greco Museum in Toledo. In each set an apostle is known by a sign, and James carries the pilgrim's staff of the road to his shrine.