The Holy Family with Mary Magdalen

By 1610 El Greco was nearly 70 and had spent almost 35 years in Toledo, the old religious capital of Spain, painting for a church in the thick of the Counter-Reformation. What was wanted were images that moved ordinary worshippers to feel, and his answer looks strange even now: figures stretched tall and nearly weightless, lit by cold, acid colour, more spirit than flesh. Here the infant Christ is held among his family with Mary Magdalen close by, her tender attention already shadowed by what she knows is coming. It was one of El Greco's most repeated tender compositions, worked and reworked with his busy Toledo workshop for private prayer. This canvas now hangs in Mexico City.